I dumped my back-basket full of green rocks at the warehouse and reflexively went to have a chat with Jen, except she wasn’t in the clerking business anymore. In fact, she was out and away. So my path took me straight into Mel’s impromptu office of a converted cart to bitch and moan at her instead. It got the nostalgia factor going again. She kept her head buried in the stack of endless paperwork.

  I lit up my pipe and leaned against the greenwood wall, knowing she hated the smell. “How much longer are you going to have me do this?”

  “As I said yesterday, you need the stats and we need the material. Win-win. Now put that out.”

  I ignored her. “Some variety wouldn’t hurt. I could go for a fight.”

  “Then go find one on your day off.”

  “Have you ever considered that since the world ended, the workdays have gotten longer and the weekends shorter? You’d think it was the other way around, right? Anyway, there’s nothing worth killing nearby, you have the spawns on lockdown. We haven’t seen a variant in weeks. Can’t you put me in one of the Solo’s teams?”

  She looked up, rolled her eyes and mocked me, “Oh poor you, everything is going so well, whatever will you do? And no, there are still people who need to level up.”

  I cursed under my breath. “Bitch.”

  “I heard that.” It didn’t even faze her.

  “Just venting.”

  She ceased writing. “Look, I know it’s boring. Tell you what, you can join Jen and go on recon once she’s fully healed, how’s that?”

  I perked up at the offer. “Fine but that’s a while off still, I need a break from this too. Mining was a lot more fun as a group activity.”

  “Lucky you, the factory finished yesterday so go ahead and commission upgrades. You can take the week or two after to work on them and your little project, maybe have some free time while they put together your kit. Consider it a vacation for now.” Vacation? Yeah, right.

  “That sounded fun until you mentioned the penciling. Well, it’ll do for now.”

  We exchanged see ya’s and once outside I stretched and took in a breath of crisp mountain air, and then fouled it with smoke, mimicking the permanent column arising across the cliff edge. My mood shot up, no more pickaxing rocks. My coining of the resource types proved surprisingly accurate. The bricks were susceptible to mining, improving my physical power in the process. It took longer to kill them like that, but also gave more magic sheet-stone and we needed oh so much. Hell, we could probably keep adding it forever.

  Our home looked like a series of interlinked low, square stone hedges for the most part. We used the converted caravan carts as temporary shelter supplemented by some rudimentary additions, built mostly out of regular wood from a nearby forest.

  True to form, the greenly marble was both malleable and durable. A deceptively thin sheet, only a few millimeters thick, produced a wall with the strength of magisteel. Masonry allowed fluid expansion, remodeling and thickening, hence our infinite hunger for magical stone. The tool was a float trowel, ridiculous as always. A rectangular piece of metal with a wooden handle unlocked the stat-link.

  I left Mel’s office cart and strolled towards the main compound under ever-clear skies, still unsure whether we designed a corporate compound or an oversized bunker. It was supposed to withstand a dragon attack once complete, if not a sustained one. Buildings popped out of the ground like mushrooms in the rain, at least when considering the tiny labor force involved.

  In keeping with tradition, we built the warehouse-slash-treasury first along with an ice-block lined freezer next to it. Not that we had any spoilage problems, but this allowed us to stockpile and diversify. A source of great relief since everyone had been well and truly fed up with the porridge diet.

  A detour brought me to the Barry-led ‘Arcane-o-ponics’, which produced food and booze at a steady pace, along with a few choice experiments. He passed all his time there after reaching level 100, mostly ‘working’ on his ‘potions’. In my opinion he found an excellent avenue to permanent, consequence-free alcoholism and thus fulfilled his purpose in life.

  Two tasters were labeled ‘wheat whiskey’ so I grabbed them from the permanent stand outside, placed there because it smelled like hell’s sewer indoors. A long chimney channeled the olfactory assault up and away.

  My final stop was the most recent addition and one of the biggest planned rooms. The roof was temporarily makeshift while the masons switched focus to the outer walls. The Factory was intended as a generalized crafting and processing area, at least for disciplines without excessive collateral sensory damage.

  Jeb had somehow assumed management of the place. Dude had an affinity for crafting and he was way too knowledgeable about how to make all kinds of rudimentary stuff. I once asked him if he used to be a prepper but he just laughed at me and refused to elaborate.

  “Hey Jeb, you up for a drink? I brought whiskey.”

  “Heya, always! What brings ya ‘ere? Ya thingy ain’t ready yet.”

  We downed our long-form shots, in the form of bamboo vials, and ignited our pipes after. I struggled with mine, trying to be a little too quick. My lighter threatened to run out any day now.

  “Not here for that. Mel sent me in for some new threads. Old stuff’s due for dismantling anyway, never tracked the work done on it.”

  “Shame, was proud o’ those. Ya had anythin’ special in mind?”

  “Not much. Quiver could use more capacity but same and smaller would work too. A little more armor, but not too much. Keep it light. The old set had me at capacity. Maybe some soft inner lining, the chafing is pretty bad. Other than that, well I haven’t given it much thought to be honest. Need a new shield-sword too.”

  “I’ll hook ya up with the good stuff then. We’s learned a lot from Elias’ spoils. Stockpile’s all right, should manage just fine.”

  “Thanks Jeb, I’m looking forward to it.” I also gave him my old cloak – the weather was unnaturally stable and the cold didn’t exactly bother me. On the rare rainy occasion, a run dried me up in minutes.

  Hypocrisy appealed and sat me down at one of the larger workbenches. I blinked my red veined former shieldsword into existence and grabbed one of the miniature pickaxes. My PS-enhanced mind wandered amidst a mechanical rhythm of tip taps. The existence of ‘dragonsteel’ had been a very happy discovery, even if it was a pain to extract. Any magic material slagged by the dragon took on more than just a reddish appearance.

  At a glance the object subjected to dragonfire appeared to be equally as magical as before, however the changes became apparent upon closer examination. Specifically, the majority of the material turned inert for lack of a better word. Although charcoal came to mind. The slag remained supernaturally hard yet quite brittle, relatively speaking.

  The red veins were the real prize, which had to be painstakingly cleared of all residual whatever-it-used-to-be. They behaved universally like a metal for arts and crafts purposes. Super-sight eased the work. Otherwise we’d need magnifying glasses or loupes.

  And what a metal it was, harder and stronger than even the previously blue edge of the halberhammeraxe, which incidentally survived its baptism by fire without any loss of function. For some reason it was immune to the brittleness. System knows why - and won’t tell us.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The magical emanations jumped off the charts with a clear piece. Jeb already dedicated an entire production line to it. We had tons of the stuff. Not only did the dragon dog shake combined with Kristen’s last stand anoint most of the random weapons around their battlefield, but she tore a few scales off the fucker too. They had a higher yield and involved even more effort. This wasn’t the only new discovery.

  The nerds had finally figured out magical tools. For a while they tried to dismantle one but the System spawned equipment resisted any such attempts. The secret ingredient caused a few forehead slaps - an internal crystal, although the size had to be right. Everything proceeded smoothly afterwards, after a short period of emptying out and refilling them to reverse engineer the capacity. No longer were we limited to reproducing tools that didn’t consume energy and I long since lost track of all the new toys entering our workshops.

  It didn’t end there. The modern world order proved remarkably consistent in some ways. For one, there was some logic to post-processing, a fruit of Elias’ ill-gotten information. It worked like stat training and we called it quality. It took one hour for the first step of improvement, two hours for the next, then three and so forth. Our magic senses weren’t that precise, so Mel issued a standing order to track the time spent on all pieces of gear. She loved her accounting.

  There were two important break-points - ten and a hundred. Elias looted several pieces of gear close to or all-the-way there. While definitely useful, the revelation also sparked disappointment. Those who survived the games became capable of ‘awakening’ equipment, which essentially turned it into a magic item as seen in games and stories all over. Alas, aside from the initial build, one had to post-process it themselves. We hadn’t even been in the new world for the necessary total of 5050 hours yet.

  Ten was more interesting, enabling us to channel a whopping thousand energy into the item. It quickly degraded over the course of a few hours, clearly overloaded since the object in question cracked and leaked light. Comparisons revealed it raised the quality to a hundred temporarily. I already knew since the nerds discovered this peculiarity a long time ago.

  Breathless elaborated on the details during one of the many mandatory info-sharing lectures. Apparently the tortured alien neglected to mention the consequences, but not the possibility, of ‘overcharging’ twice, as the nerds called it.

  The victim probably hoped Elias would do exactly so in a pickle. It went boom, spectacularly. Apparently the bandaged nerd in the old pub long ago nearly killed himself testing exactly that, with a piece of metal the size of a bottle cap no less.

  Time marched on and my days were spent drinking and chiseling for dragonsteel, until Jeb finished my new get-up. Seriously, how the fuck is he this good. It mostly had the same smooth green-black leather look. He included some extra optional utilities like a separate bandolier and other detachable sheath, vial or pocket shaped accessories.

  The sleeve-integrated bracers contained slots for ten coins total instead of one each and he added a fancy metal plate to the chest piece. I’d opted out of headwear, was pretty good at covering my face with my arms in times of need and close to capacity anyway.

  He’d gone a little overboard on the heart guard and stylized it with a rendition of a dragon spreading its wings. That happened to every piece of armor he made, including my shield. His habit spread like wildfire and turned into an affectation of esprit du corps. Face the fear.

  He’d also been nice enough to use bonemetal for everything except the shield, so I didn’t need to re-leatherwork… reforge the metal parts separately from the rest of the armor. He consolidated as many separate parts as possible into one. The new design philosophy dictated bigger was better, to save on capacity and post-processing efficiency.

  I had a full upper body chest piece and proper pants along with a pair of slightly uncomfortable but functional army style boots, plus a quiver. Jeb’s refit left me with five core pieces of gear in total, as opposed to many more before. My quiver gained an upgrade as well. Somehow he’d done the impossible and crammed more sheaths in there, thus expanding my clip to twenty plus three from my skill.

  Moreover, recently discovered magical cotton helped against the chafing. Supposedly he couldn’t do inner lining so I’d just have to wear the padding underneath. My new shield was bigger than the last, with better ergonomics too. This one was designed less like a traditional shield held in hand and more for leaning into it with a shoulder. My skill cared not. It had a handle and a blade, which was presumably enough.

  Up-magicking mundane material was an alchemical pain in the ass, initially abandoned due to the cost and effort while the alchemists had other priorities anyway. Since we were well into our magical revolution, no stone had been left unturned. The list of discoveries seemed endless and grew by the day.

  The nerds catalogued everything meticulously; from the things we could do, both new and old methods, the surroundings and Errant typology, to a goddamn organizational chart. There would be no casualty induced brain-drain in the future once the builders finished the library, named ‘William’s Repository’ after the late Glasses. The nerds felt his loss keenly, missing both his friendship and his expertise as a former mechanical engineer.

  We only delayed exploring the Underway underneath us. We might or might not have, depending on who asked, used the stairway as a waste chute. At least until Mel returned from her sprint to 100, called us idiots and put an end to it. We’d eventually clean it out with magical fire or something, for now there were zero volunteers for delving it and our crystal supply skyrocketed anyway.

  We were filthy rich despite our limited manpower, although quite a few folks made big strides in recovering from their injuries, Jen included. Our wealth resulted from rabidly pushing people to the level cap, then rotating in low level folks while the hundreds expanded our workforce.

  Originally, some intended to forego ascendancy yet their numbers dwindled over time. Mel expressly forbade us from joining the ascension royale until she decided we were ready, smartly enforcing discipline. I’m sure the hubris effect has nothing at all to do with the budding enthusiasm for the death games. Temporary, my ass.

  The days passed by quickly again. At first I happily chipped away at my old bulwark before going all out on my new gear. I doodled on my new shield for exactly 225 hours. Then I convinced Mel improving the rest of my armor was equally important and burned another 225 hours reforging. Leatherworking turned out to jive well with me. Supposedly it was a lot less fun in the past because of the stench from tanning.

  In theory all my new gear was now at quality 10. Further augmentation had to wait since my practice plate turned into a priority. Can’t slack off on my part of the project. I was getting a hang for single-minded focus. The trick? Frequent breaks. The whole ordeal lasted nearly a month, which coincided nicely with Jen’s full recovery.

  Well, mostly it lined up with her brand new job, she’d been ambulatory for a while now but also very busy. Most of her time was spent carefully monitoring the excuse of a city below. The massive influx of information required organizing and summarizing. Jen’s skill at clerking, along with her affinity for grand gossip, landed her the chief of intelligence position. Not that she was bad in a fight either nowadays.

  Mel turned the combat-prep up to eleven. Group drills, personal training, combat theory, sparring and skill exploration, everything was mandatory and frequent. Our group of survivors slowly transformed into a well-oiled fighting machine, during practice at least. It helped people regain confidence while working through their trauma too. In retrospect, it had been less about the bad things happening and more fundamentally rooted in our powerlessness during it all. Surprise, surprise.

  While reminiscing on recent times served as an excellent distraction, there was other business at hand. My current threads were rather finicky. It took a while to get everything just right. Satisfied, I checked the sundial outside and then rushed off for the promised night out.

  Jen arrived slightly after me and looped her arm in mine. “You ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah I’m excited, although I’m not sure this outfit will fly.”

  “It’ll be fiiine, it’s common down there.”

  We essentially wore oversized rags, old clothes crudely stitched together - with proper armor underneath, just in case. To maintain our cover, most of my ammo stayed home aside from a few extra swords hidden about my person.

  Of course, Mel armed me with five fucking thousand crystal ‘for emergencies’ on top of my own private stash of another grand. Jen affectionately referred to it as our spending money. The penny-pincher CEO would have my liver for all three meals of the day if I wasted company cash on our little excursion. Even if Jen said she could wing it as an expense if we found interesting things to bring back.

  We both stepped up to the ledge, a nice secluded section with no sightlines to our destination. She gave me a worried look. “You’re sure this is safe?” We could probably jump down and be fine.

  “Way down’s the easy part - like riding an elevator. At least for you, since I’ll be doing all the work. Back up is a bitch though. It’s funny. I used to be scared of heights.”

  “Well aren’t you a gentleman, facing your fears for me?” She pecked me on the cheek and winked. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget your sacrifice. I’ll let you get away with at least two fuck-ups for this.”

  “Aren’t we being generous. Well, here goes.”

  And so we climbed down the cliff face. Jen sat on a swing of floating swords and rope secured to me, my control skill carried most of her weight. Meanwhile I used two blades as improvised icepicks while she made bad jokes. It was a big step down from solo mountaineering, where I just improvised a stairway by mentally wedging them into the vertical wall of stone. But the company was well worth it and my efforts made an impression too, all in all a great start to the evening.

  It was time to explore the city under the guise of reconnaissance, although we just called it date-night.