After staying up most of the night eating Rex’s morally dubious pizza, playing charades, and passing around a few bottles of something strong which Bell had conveniently purchased in the course of enacting her duties as provisions master, I woke with a bit of a headache.

  Thankfully, at my level I didn’t really need sleep so only getting a few hours of it was still plenty.

  Leaving the others to their reverie, Panda and I journeyed back to Hack and Slash to inquire about my new daggers.

  My heart quivered as I opened the door. When had I become such a weapons enthusiast?

  We entered to the sounds of Leroy’s snoring. It sounded like a chainsaw cutting through iron during a thunderstorm. Seriously, the room literally shook from the inexorable sounds emanating from his mouth.

  “Kid, I vow never to complain about your snoring ever again,” Panda said, placing his paw solemnly across his heart.

  “My snoring?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at him, “you’re the one who snores. It reminds me of the bloodhound my cousin had when we were kids.”

  “I am nothing if not a dutiful and capable companion.”

  “It was fat and lame.”

  Looking at me with wide eyes he huffed and promptly turned his back on me as I laughed.

  The snoring stopped and we found ourselves steeped in the eerie silence of dawn. I’d always hated that greasy feeling my skin had early in the morning. It was even worse when I went camping. Though I’d never really experienced it in Celestia, until now.

  “Oh, is it that time already?” Leroy asked sleepily as he pushed himself away from the drool-stained workbench. “I finished your daggers, they’re in the case over there.”

  He gestured towards a plain-looking wooden stand with a glass shutter affixed to it – the shutter was sitting open.

  “May I?” I asked excitedly.

  Without reply, he batted his hand in the general direction of my daggers and began rubbing his eyes.

  You don’t have to tell me twice, I thought as I stepped towards the daggers, looking at them like a child staring at a toy in a shop window.

  Both weapons were jet black, their hilts wrapped delicately with a smooth leather binding. The glint of their blades was indiscernible to the naked eye, though when I really focused I could see the deadly sheen of complete sharpness.

  These blades could cut through skin like butter.

  As I focused, a familiar and welcome notification popped up on my HUD:

  Daggers of Empirical Darkness (unique)

  A highly modified and upgraded variant of the traditional steel daggers. Combining a mixture of spider’s silk, slime’s core, a venomous sack, refined kraken ink and a kraken’s eye, these blades have become unique.

  Due to the potency of the kraken’s eye, these blades only have eyes for you, their abilities can only be used by their owner.

  They’ll go especially well with your chunni personality and wannabe Batman attire.

  Imprinted owner: N/A

  Poison blade: 30% chance to poison foe on contact

  Spider’s web: 5% chance to immobilise foe on contact

  Slime’s kiss: 15% chance of cuts becoming immediately infected + 75% chance of infection causing necrosis.

  The potency of refined kraken’s ink has developed a unique skill within these blades.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  THIS SKILL CAN ONLY BE ACTIVATED IF BOTH BLADES ARE EQUIPPED.

  Empirical Darkness (unique)

  Stick your daggers into a surface, the space between them becomes an abyss causing blindness and confusion to all trapped within.

  This skill can only be activated once per day.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed as I reread the notification a second time. “These daggers are OP as fuck!”

  “Sush,” Panda said in a hushed voice, “if you let him know how much you like them he’ll try to charge you more. Something’s off about him as it is.”

  “But we already shook on it,” I replied defiantly, ignoring Panda’s warning. “Leroy, these are great. How do I imprint on them?”

  Naturally I had paid particular attention to the imprinting function of the daggers. It would be a useful security measure, especially given my propensity for misplacing them mid battle.

  The last thing I wanted was an enemy turning my own blades against me.

  I couldn’t believe how awesome my new weapons were and I was itching to try them out. All of those new bonuses coupled with my Acidic Dhampir Weapons skill would make me nigh unstoppable. Or at least, it’d help me actually pose a threat to a decent gold ranker.

  “I can do that for ye now if ye like,” he said, rising from his seat and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “First there’s just the matter of ma payment.”

  “No problem, 200,000 gold and the rest of the kraken ink, as we agreed.”

  “Actually…” he said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. “Those daggers came out unique. I wasn’t expecting that when we shook. Unique weapons tend to go for closer to the million-mark truth be told.”

  “We made a deal,” I replied sternly, “and I expect you to honour it.”

  I could feel the heat rising to my face, aided by Panda’s I told you so eyes.

  “Aye, we did make a deal…” he sighed, “just feels a bit like I’ve been done dirty.”

  “How exactly?” I asked, feeling my temper begin to get the better of me. “You made a deal which was initially advantageous to you. I supplied all the ingredients and you’re getting half a bottle of the precious kraken ink you covet so much. In what possible way am I doing you dirty.”

  “You tell him, kid,” Panda said, pumping his fist in the air.

  The dwarf eyed a mean looking mace a few feet from himself and then looked at me contemplatively.

  Was he really about to throw down over this?

  His hand gripped and ungripped as if he was struggling to decide on what to do and I mentally hovered over the equip function on my bow in my inventory.

  If he wanted a showdown I’d shoot his hand off before his fingers could ever brush that mace. I’d done it before after all. Shooting people’s hands off was starting to become my trademark.

  “If you reach for that mace I’ll take your head,” I said in a low whisper.

  “And then you won’t get any money,” Panda added.

  Leroy narrowed his eyes at me, then glanced at the mace once more.

  “You know, back in the old country we used to have a saying, a phrase we’d scream at the top of our lungs before heading into a fight,” the dwarf began, a menacing tone to his husky voice.

  “It became a rallying cry of my people, my namesake in fact. It’s never failed me before.”

  His hand twitched again his eyes darted momentarily towards the mace once more.

  That son of a bitch, he’s really going to do it.

  “LEROY JENK-”

  Before he had a chance to finish his primal scream I equipped my bow and fired off a shot. I didn’t have time to charge the arrow with soul infused energy but it’d have to do anyway.

  The arrow flew through the air, piercing the dwarf’s wrist and severing his hand which dropped onto the floor, a limp, discarded piece of rotten meat.

  His skin bubbled and within moments his wrist began to melt, the acid burning its way up his forearm.

  “Holy shit! Help! Help!” Leroy cried.

  “How do I imprint on the daggers?” I asked.

  “How do you? What the fuck ye sadistic bastard, my arm is melting off!”

  “Tell me how and I’ll help,” I replied cooly.

  “Better do what he says,” Panda added, “pretty soon it’ll be past your elbow and you can’t be a blacksmith if you can’t bend your arm.”

  “Fine!” He screamed, “there’s a scroll, it’s in ma pocket. Use it, but please just save my arm!”

  With a nod I sent Panda to scour his pockets for the scroll, keeping my bow trained on him the whole time.

  He dug around in the little man’s pants and produced a fancy-looking piece of parchment which glowed an ominous scarlet colour.

  Tossing it to me, I caught it deftly, unravelling the scroll like I was about to proclaim a new law to the king’s people.

  Scroll Of Imprinting:

  Use this scroll to imprint yourself on a relevant item. Once this is done it cannot be reversed. This is a single use item.

  Moving towards the daggers I touched the scroll to them and another message appeared.

  You must sign in blood.

  “Well that’s a bit evil sounding,” I murmured as I pricked my finger with the tip of an arrow and began signing my name on the scroll.

  In a whoosh, the scroll burst into flames and the scarlet light seemed to be absorbed by the daggers.

  Picking them up, I checked the notification again and my name had been successfully added to it. I placed them into my inventory along with my bow.

  “Ok, you’ve got your bloody daggers” Leroy squealed, “Now will ye please hurry up before my arm gets any shorter!”

  “Sure, but just so you know, I can’t actually stop the acid. All I can do is hand you that cleaver so you can cut above the area it’s spread to.”

  “You… WHAT?” The dwarf shouted, “can’t ye at least do the cutting for me? Ye said you’d help me!”

  “Nope, my skill makes all weapons inflict acid damage. Except on myself of course, otherwise I couldn’t have pricked my finger. I mean can you imagine trying to shave on a morning? It’d be terrifying.”

  “Don’t worry,” Panda said warmly, though his eyes were narrowed. “You can get it reattached if you get to a healer quickly enough. That’s what happened last time.”

  “Last time?” Leroy looked as white as a ghost as he looked pleadingly between us.

  “Anyway, here’s your cleaver. This is the help I meant,” I said, handing him the butchering blade. “And, just so I don’t go getting a reputation as a stingy guy, you can keep what’s left of the ink as per our agreement. I’m going to keep my money though. Call it reparations. You know attacking a customer isn’t a very clever business move. Haven’t you heard? The customer is always right.”

  With a casual wave Panda and I exited the store to the backdrop of the dwarf’s whimpering.

  “Did you see the notification for the daggers?” I asked Panda as we headed back to the camper. “The system called me a chunni, can you believe it?”