The Runesmith

A tall youth was walking towards a certain destination. He was wearing a long coat and hiding a lot of spatial bags that were hanging around his belt. He glanced around the city that he had spent years in and was getting slightly nostalgic.

This was the city where his blacksmithing career took off. He had learned all the basics here and he did it on his own. It was also where he finally learned to use and create runes. After all these years Roland was feeling like he was finally getting how they actually worked. He could even combine various schematics to create new spells.

He would now need to postpone his future research and get out of this city. It was getting too dangerous and he didn’t trust the company to protect him. If he didn’t have his debugging skills he would have died along with them.

From his point of view, Zilyana had failed miraculously by not reacting in the correct way. The manager was at fault too for not getting some enchanted devices that could block out illusion magic of that caliber.

It looked like they got lazy after years of stability, the business was booming and everyone was earning money. Then someone decided that it was time for a change by killing almost all of the council members.

The whole city was now in disarray. Almost all of the businesses lost their owners in one day. The person that caused this would probably show themselves now. Who was doing it was a mystery but they were probably doing it to get the biggest market share in the city. With the council heads gone there would be a big hole in the city's finances.

The perpetrator could be the sole survivor that hadn’t been attacked during the meeting. The gnome was proven innocent as he had almost kicked the bucket.

The next option was that it was a third party either moving in to take over or doing it for another reason. There were cult members involved in this assassination and where they were demons weren’t far off.

The man was an Abyssal Warlock, a person that made a contract with a higher being. Most of the time this would be achieved by selling their soul or by performing some kind of ritual. In this ritual, other people's lives would be used as payment.

The woman that was with him was similar. She was an abyssal class holder but closer to the rouge route. She seemed to have a screw loose which he noticed during the time that she stabbed him through the shoulder.

Roland continued walking while trying to figure out the true perpetrator. The reason for this attack seemed obvious as a lot of money was involved. He wanted to know the reason for getting almost killed, maybe the manager would have this answer.

This whole predicament reminded him about the first city he had to leave. There he also left at a moment’s notice with his only plan being a city with crafting resources. He then stumbled around with some leftover cash for half a year before finally having some luck in selling his runic scrolls at the auction house.

‘A city with an auction house is a must…’

He already knew that his scrolls would sell, be it at a regular store or an auction house. Without an establishment as that, he would probably need to sign another contract. This was something that he wanted to avoid this time around.

He didn’t think he would get a good deal without revealing his special class either. Trusting someone to keep it a secret again was something that he wasn’t willing to do.

Roland had a map with some notes. There were a couple of cities that he had researched some larger than others.

He wanted one that met some criteria. One was having an auction house where he could buy and sell items. The other thing that needed to be there was a dungeon, this was the most important requirement.

Roland realized that having personal strength was paramount in this world. He just needed to look at the two assassins. They could just enter the city, kill people, and then get away without anyone being able to stop them. This was the strength of a tier 3 elite, something that wasn’t often seen in this world he was in.

Most people that had battle classes ended their journey at tier 2. Crafting professions could go higher as it was easier to constantly produce items than to constantly fight monsters. The raw stats a crafting profession had were also lower. The lack of battle skills was another minus for said crafting classes.

With lower stats received and fewer skills, they wouldn’t even be able to defeat a tier 2 veteran. You could see this mostly by looking at Roland’s scribe class that didn’t give much besides intelligence and dexterity. The other physical stats were almost nonexistent and it hardly increased his vitality.

This was the case with most of the crafting professions besides a blacksmith. That was a class that actually required high strength and endurance to produce items. Yet someone like a leatherworker or goldsmith wouldn’t get much besides dexterity and then meager numbers in the rest.

Roland felt like he needed to increase all of his battle-related skills before his advancement into tier 2. Luckily his runic blacksmith class increased his battle-related stats. Though they looked to be stats for a stationary tank with high magic usage.

High strength, endurance, and willpower but with low agility. Roland felt like he would have to either mitigate his weakness with some enchanted gear or strengthen the things he was good at. So either increase his agility with some mana stones or focus on his defenses and magic power.

This he would decide after seeing his tier 2 class options. He knew that there were some hybrid classes out there but if he could nab one was unknown.

‘Dungeon, Auction house, relatively new city… would be nice if I could get some cheap real estate there...’

Another thing that he needed was a place to stay. He couldn’t just live in an inn again as the need for repairing and crafting new equipment would be there. His class was reliant on it and he didn’t think switching to a more battle oriented one would give him as much flexibility. He would still need to make that decision after caping out his blacksmith class.

Roland didn’t think that he would be able to research information about the land he could buy here. Not like he could pull up an internet page with the information, the most he could do was to pay an information guild that sold things like that. The info wouldn’t be fresh though and when he arrived the house could be already sold. He would probably have to risk the journey and hope for the best.

‘Maybe I should try going someplace owned by the Aristocats instead of the royalists this time around…’

Roland thought as he was close to arriving in Hightown where the manager lived.

There were two main factions in this kingdom, the aristocrats and the royalists. The former consisted of the most influential nobles of the country. The latter were part of the royal family mostly related to the king and the nobles sworn to them.

There were also many smaller factions sprinkled here and there but they didn’t possess as much power. These two factions were more or less close in power with the royal family winning out slightly.

Roland was someone from a noble house himself. He had studied the basics of how this country worked. His own house of Arden was part of the royalists. His father had recently achieved the title of baron after a successful campaign against one of the countries that his kingdom had less than stellar relationships with.

The city of Edelgard was further into the country and closer to the royalists. The owner of it wasn’t directly connected to his father but maybe the other faction ran their cities better. The noble that was responsible here certainly didn’t give a damn about his citizens.

When the first assassination attempt happened the guards were really late to arrive. He was also taken into custody without having the option of explaining himself.

‘If I take all of that into consideration there is just one place I can go to…’

He looked at the map that he was holding and looked down at the south part of the kingdom. There was a certain large island there, it was ruled by a Marquess that was part of the aristocrat faction.

That wasn’t the main reason for going there, there was a certain new dungeon that had risen recently.

Things like new dungeons appeared from time to time. No one knew exactly how they came to be but each of those lairs had a dungeon core. People theorized that if the mana density was just right a dungeon core would come to be.

This dungeon core could appear anywhere, down in a lake, buried deep underground, or even in the sky. Where the dungeon core appeared would mostly dictate how the dungeon looked and what kind of monsters appeared in it.

This peculiar one that he was willing to risk going towards appeared in a volcanic region. The spot he would be going was rich in minerals, the monsters were fire types or rocky ones.

The closest settlement to this dungeon was but a small village before this occurred. Now apparently people were flocking to it, quickly building up the infrastructure. If he hurried he too could end up nabbing himself a part in this.

Before that could happen he needed to get out of here. For that, he also needed a lot of funds and the broken contract that he was bringing with him would be for that.

He finally stood in front of the gnome’s supposed house. The number and street name was correct so he went over and gave the door a couple of knocks.

“Who is it?”

The door didn’t open but he could hear a woman’s voice behind it. Someone opened up a small latch through which they looked at him.

“My name is Roland, I need to speak with the manager…”

Roland felt strange for not knowing the gnome’s name after all these years. Was the small guy also trying to run away from his old life or something?

“Ah...yes, wait a minute.”

The small latch closed and he could hear the locks being unlocked. The person on the other side revealed herself to him. The woman looked to be about forty and a human, she was also wearing a maid uniform similar to the ones that the maids back at the Arden estate used to wear.

“Please follow me, the master is expecting you.”

Roland nodded, at least the working staff weren’t calling the gnome by his manager title.

The house was quite large and reminded him of old victorian era brick houses. The inside was quite spacious and he could see other people working. There was a butler looking at some maids that were packing up some silverware.

Obviously, the gnome wasn’t going to stay here for much longer and they were packing up. When Roland arrived upstairs he saw another moon elf in similar black leather clothing as Zilyana’s. He was standing next to a partly opened door and he looked to be guarding it.

“This is Mr. Roland, he wishes to see the master.”

“Well, if it isn’t the fabled master craftsman!”

When Roland got closer he could see that something was wrong with this man. He looked quite relaxed and the odor of alcohol was quite strong.

“Fabled craftsman?”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, did the gnome give out his secret to other people? That shouldn’t be the case as it was stated in the contract. There were other ways of getting information out, this was one more reason for him to leave this place. This again proved the limitations of contracts to him.

“Mr. Ziron you shouldn’t bother the guest.”

The moon elf gave out a chuckle before pushing the door open. He peeked inside the room afterward and announced Roland’s arrival.

“Hey, you got a guest!”

Roland just remained there without saying anything. The moon elf had a strange grin plastered all over his face.

“A guest? Who is it?”

He heard a familiar voice from that room, the gnome sounded quite alive but there was something off.

“Master, Mr. Roland has come to see you.”

“Ah, let the boy in.”

When he peeked inside the room he noticed what the problem was. The gnome was sitting in a chair and to the side were some crutches. He was missing his left foot, it was gone a bit below the knee.

“Manager?...”

“Ah, this? That fucker got me good, don’t worry about it, it can be healed later. Wounds from Warlocks like that don’t heal that easily, I need to make a special elixir.”

The foot looked to be wrapped in some kind of strange bandages that had peculiar symbols on them. They didn’t seem to be runes but they were exuding some kind of mystical power.

“Is that so… I see that you are packing up, skipping town?”

Roland asked after closing the door behind him. He could see that most of the shelves in this room were cleared out and just a few scrolls remained here and there.

“I underestimated that bastard... “

Roland quickly raised a brow and cut the gnome off before he could continue.

“That bastard?”

“There is no reason to hide it from you now…”

The gnome took out his old pipe and puffed out some smoke.

“First I have to thank you for saving my life, if you weren’t there I’d probably be coming out of that Warlock’s ass right about now.”

The gnome chuckled slightly while Roland cringed at the image that popped into his head.

“About the man responsible… It's the second son of the count, the bastard contacted the blasted Abyssal Cult! The idiot is crazy!

He knew that the noble house that this land belonged to was the House of Dreux, and the noble that resided here was called Louis Dreux.

“Louis Dreux? Why would he aim for your life?”

“I’m not sure, it was either just greed or another fight for succession. You know Louis has an older brother, Armand. Armand is the true heir and this land is under his supervision but he had to leave towards the border…”

The gnome gave him his best theory. Armand the first son had left for the border to aid in the war effort. There were some skirmishes the kingdom and the Hatfordian Empire were involved in but they didn’t escalate into a full-scale war yet.

“The idiot tried buying us out a couple of years ago, for an atrocious price. If he owned all the businesses in the city he probably could somehow contend with his brother. Maybe he wanted to try buying his way back into his father's heart?”

The gnome blew out some of the smoke through his mouth again while grimacing.

“Unfortunately we won’t be able to pin this on him, those abyssal cult bastards got away. Even if we caught them they wouldn’t talk, they would just commit suicide.”

Roland had to take a second to process this. Apparently, he had gotten himself into the middle of some petty squabble between two noble sons. While one was away the other was trying to buy out the city from under him.

When the other came back he would actually own all of the money-making businesses. Roland wasn’t really sure about the laws around here but even nobles couldn’t just take over stores without getting the right papers from the current owners.

Even they couldn’t go against the law of the land and needed to have the owners sell their property. The only way to go around this was if the owner died without an heir. Then the noble would get ownership of whatever that person owned.

The noble by killing the current owners wanted to get the stores for free. That or get them from their next of kin that would probably sell it instantly after seeing their deaths. The abyssal cult's involvement would have been difficult to prove. Even though everyone knew who the perpetrator was with no hard proof it would be impossible to pin something on a noble.

“Don’t worry kid, you can come with me, I’ll be leaving towards the capital. I'll get you a nice workshop there, you did save my life.”

The gnome changed the subject after everything was clear. He and his people were leaving, even though the assassination had failed there was still danger. Most of the council was dead and their business associates probably knew why.

Every one would either sell what they had or leave, the noble in question would probably get most of the establishments. If that was enough for him to take this city over before his brother returned was unknown.

“Yes about that…”

Roland didn’t beat around the bush for much longer. He got his answer to his question and now knew that nobles were involved. He quickly pulled out his contract and placed it on the table before speaking out.

“I will be leaving but not with you, now give me my money, you broke the contract.”

The gnome blew out some smoke through his nostrils and looked at the piece of parchment, he didn’t look that surprised.

“I thought so…, you sure you won’t reconsider? You’ll need a better workshop in the future, this is something I can provide you with. The capital is a lot safer than wherever you are planning to go, you should think it over again.”

Roland just shook his head while declining the gnome's offer. Having a workshop was fine and all, but hanging around people that attracted tier 3 monsters left and right was too stressful.

“I thought about it but I’d rather try things my way…”

The gnome pointed to the side with his pipe, on one shelf there was a lone bag and next to it a book.

“Figured you’d say that. The money is in there with a little bonus for your troubles. Should cover the healing fees.”

Roland moved over and looked inside the bag, he was greeted by quite a bit of golden coins. 150 small gold coins to be exact and next to the bag was a book. This was a skill book and had the ‘Mana Reinforcement’ skill knowledge in it. He had asked the company to procure it before this whole fiasco happened.

“150… that’s 50 above the contract sum and this book…”

“Just take it, most of it came out of Zilyana’s and that idiots pay.”

The gnome grumbled while Roland placed the gold pouch into one of his spatial bags along with the skill book.

“So, don’t think you’ll tell me where you are headed?”

Roland just blankly stared at the gnome as if that was a stupid question to ask. He didn’t really have a deep connection with this man but he did at least pay him well.

“I’d rather not…”

“I don’t know what you are running away from kid…but take care of yourself, if you’re ever in the capital be sure to find me, I’ll give you a good deal. Just say that Marlo Grimboodle sent ya.”

“Marlo?”

Roland looked at the gnome that was smiling, his pipe was placed to the side while he grasped one of his crutches.

“The one and only, don’t be spreading my name to just anyone!”

Roland finally had his money and had even gotten more than he anticipated. The only thing left now was to get to the train station. This journey would take longer than before as he would be traveling a lot farther than last time. Maybe if he got stronger he might take Marlo up on his offer.