The Hammer Mage of Spinworld (A LitRPG Portal Fantasy Deckbuilder)

Max looked back just as the bladed yoyo hit him. The six inch blades hit and shattered against his right leg. He would have a bruise there, but it didn't make it through the titanium plate on the back of his thigh. The impact was still enough to make him stumble to his hand and knees. He would have jumped back up but only having one working arm and the slowing mist made that difficult.

The now giant tank had caught up with them and angled for the slowest of the bunch, Bisrat. Her bleeding gut wound had sapped her energy enough for her to fall behind a few feet. The giant rose his tower shield to slam it down atop her.

Before he could get close enough, a blue blur shot down from above. It was Lily's drop bear. It hit the man on his oversized head and made him stumble to the road. The summons was overwhelmed by the force of the impact and was dispelled.

Bisrat noticed the giant as he clattered to the pavers behind her. She made a pained look and tossed the two remaining hammers at his head. Both super strikes activated, domes of blue force shooting out. One missed him completely, it was facing the wrong way. The other hit his unprotected head and popped it like a melon. Blood sprayed everywhere.

The mist disappeared in the same instant. A woman in the back of the guildies gasped as yellow magic pierced her heart. Yang had snuck up behind them and made her move. She pulled the quazi-lightsaber out of the woman's chest as she fell to the ground. Then she spun and decapitated two more guildies.

As she was wrecking their backline, Lily had attacked with her mushroomantis in their middle. The summons had grown since he saw it last, it was now five feet tall with a five feet wide mushroom cap. The mantis blades shot out in all directions, hitting four people at once. It wasn't enough to kill anyone, but it interrupted their attacks. The green bolts stopped filling the air and the yoyo guy turned his attention to the summon in their midst.

Yang moved towards the fat man next in line and slashed down with her buzzing magic sword. A shimmering dome shield appeared around the man and stopped the lightsaber cold. The yellow magic shuttered and cut out, unable to pierce the man's shimmering protection. The woman to his right flicked her hand at Yang and made her float upwards. The woman chuckled as Yang flailed about wildly. She pulled a sword and sliced sideways at Yang's helpless form.

Yang blocked her strike with the tungsten drill. The impact still sent her spinning away. She floated into the distance, out of the fight.

Lily's mushroomantis was overwhelmed a moment later. As the summons returned to a haze of mana, the fighters turned to attack again. Lily was the only one still standing.

James had been huddling on the ground with his arms over his head from the beginning. Bisrat had laid down and was using both hands to put pressure on her wound. Max was still on his hand and knees. Lily was the only one still standing.

A bright yellow beam of light speared out and hit her in the hip. It shattered her chitin armor there and sent her spinning to the ground.

Max growled and stumbled to his feet. If he was going to die here, he would die fighting.

A quartet of guildies marched forward, swords drawn. They had been holding back so far. Now that their prey looked beaten, they gained the courage to attack. They headed for Bisrat, but Max limped forward to intercept them.

Max swung his war hammer wildly in their direction. "Back up. This hammer has a super magic strike. I can take all of you out with a single blow."

There was a brief standoff while they tried to decide if he was bluffing.

The woman in the back yelled, "What are you, cowards? Get him!"

Before they could gather up the courage, the man on the far left was splattered with a face full of red liquid. Everywhere it touched, his skin turned to stone. He was frozen in place within moments. The man on the far right shouted that he was blind. Then the two men in the middle were obliterated by a falling desk.

Max fell backwards as rock shards flew out. He watched from the ground as people were picked off one by one. Ernie's forces had finally arrived.

Arrows started raining down from the building on the left. The tank deflected them with his shield, but two others weren't so lucky. They joined the other dead, leaving only three people standing.

One of the remaining guildies sent Green bolts flying through the air, impacting the roofs to either side of the street. He was silenced by a faceful of red liquid. He sputtered for a moment before turning to stone. The ground near the fat man and the levitate woman turned to slurry. She sunk into the ground, but he didn't. When she was waist deep, the ground turned solid again, trapping her in place. An arrow pierced her eye a moment later.

The fat man shouted, "Attacking me is scary!"

The air reverberated with his cry and the attacks slowed down. The bowman stationed on the roof above continued to shoot his arrows, but they kept bouncing off the guildmaster's shield.

The guildmaster turned to run away, but six guards were blocking his way. They unsheathed their swords in unison and marched forward in lockstep.

He shouted again, "Attacking me is scary!"

The magic in his voice was weaker this time and the guards kept stomping forward.

Max slowly regained his feet. He grabbed the tungsten hammer he had dropped and limped towards the guildmaster.

"Yes, fighting is scary. We do it anyway," Max said and slammed his hammer down.

The super strike hit the guildmaster's shield and blasted out a wave of blue force. Max stumbled back from the impact. The strike put a crack in the shield but didn't harm the man inside.

Then the Augmented part kicked in, delivering another super strike to the same spot in the shield. Spiderweb cracks covered the whole shield. The third strike shattered the shield entirely. The fourth strike knocked the guildmaster to the ground, and strikes five and six battered him. It didn't kill him since the magic originated from the same spot in the air he had hit.

Max decided to finish the job himself. He spun the war hammer around so the spike was facing down. Then he stepped forward and slammed it down into the man's skull. He flinched away from the gore. When no one else attacked him, he let the system notices pop up.

He felt slightly sick. He didn't want a level up from killing other humans. He had no choice. The Silver Eagle Guild had been hell bent on revenge, and their deaths were the only way to end things.

The marching guards faded away, they had been illusions all along. The guildie that had been blinded was still yelling, but a guard hopped off the roof and drifted to the ground. He landed lightly and cut the guildie's throat. Then he shattered the two stone statues and made sure everyone from the Silver Eagle Guild was dead.

Max blinked in shock. He had been expecting them to be tied up, not killed. All of a sudden, Max felt weak. He tried to sit down, but fell to the pavers instead. Someone ran up to him and started tending to his wounded shoulder.

The pain in his shoulder had faded with the adrenaline of the fight, but now the pain was back with full force. Tears started dripping down his cheeks as Max writhed in pain.

"Lily!" James yelled, "Answer me, Lily. You just gotta stay awake so we can heal you."

Max tried to sit up but the pain wouldn't let him.

"Sir? Do you have healing potions? The three of you are going to bleed out soon," a voice said.

Max couldn't properly focus on the man tending to his wounds, but he understood what he was saying. With a supreme effort of will he pulled out their only healing potion. The only question was who should he give it to?

Bisrat had been hit in the gut, Lily in the hip, and Max in the shoulder.

The pain was making it tempting to drink himself. But he couldn't live with himself if he did that. He felt like he could survive his shoulder injury, and by the way James was yelling, it seemed like Lily might not.

She might not be family, but she certainly felt like a sister to Max. He could handle a little pain.

He held up the healing potion and yelled, "James! Give this to Lily!"

A few moments later the potion was snatched out of his hands.

James said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Time passed slowly. Pain wormed its way though his body, a bone deep agony radiating from his shoulder.

An eternity later Lily appeared in his vision. She looked beat up, even after the healing potion.

"Thanks, Max, I owe you my life," Lily said. She hovered her hands over his bandaged wound, not knowing what to do. "I'll pay you back, I swear."

Max opened his mouth to make a flippant reply, but could only groan. He grit his teeth to keep himself from crying out more in pain.

Time passed again.

Finally, something new appeared.

It was Ernie, holding a red potion. "Drink up, Max. Sorry I took so long, I had to run all the way here from the alchemists."

Max sucked down the potion as fast as he could. The magic spread through his body in seconds and forced out ooze and pus from the shoulder wound. Within moments, he was fully healed. His leg felt better too. He had forgotten about that injury with how bad his shoulder had hurt.

He slowly sat up, weakened despite the healing.

Across the street, Bisrat was getting the same healing potion treatment. His heart unclenched, he had been more worried about her than he had realized.

"Wait. Are you really here?" Max asked and waved his hand in front of him.

To his surprise, he touched Ernie. The governor chuckled and stood up.

"Yeah, I'm really here. What's surprising is that you are still here. I don't know how you newbies managed to survive." Ernie said. He ran his hand through his slick black hair. "I'm sorry you had to fight at all. The ambush was set up too far out and my boys had to run to join the fight. I wish I could have helped more but I was ocCupied in the main fight with their heavy hitters."

"That wasn't their heavy hitters?" Max asked in wonder.

Ernie laughed mirthlessly. "No, you fought the B team. The guildmaster was the only tier two of the bunch and he had used up most of his mana by the time you tussled with him."

"Did you get the rest of them?"

"Yeah, sort of. I left one alive so they could let the other guilds know I'm not a soft target."

Max slowly stood up. "I think you might want to hire more guards if you want to consider this city a hard target."

Ernie nodded seriously, "Well, I am hiring if you are interested."

"No thanks. We almost all died." Max said.

"Fair enough. Still, thanks for fighting for me today. Like I said before, I do reward those that stick their necks out for me. Now that everyone is healed, I'm passing out loot at city hall. Come on up when you feel ready." Ernie said. He walked a few steps and then disappeared.

James chuckled and said, "That's a good trick." He turned to Max and said, "The whole street ahead of us is an illusion now. My colorblindness can't pick him out anymore."

Max nodded wearily. He wasn't particularly impressed with the trick. He just wanted a spot to sit and rest.

One of the city guards came up to Max and held out three cards and a ring. He said, "This is your share from the fight. The city claimed the Guildmaster's shield artifact, so I made sure you got this ring instead."

Max mumbled thanks and tucked away the cards and the dungeon ring. He would look at them when he was rested and feeling better.

James sat down next to Max and softly said, "I'm sorry I couldn't fight. I tried, I really did."

Max pulled him in for a hug. "Don't worry about it. You did what you could. Everyone is fine."

James hugged him back and wiped tears off his face.

"Come on, let's go to city hall and get our loot," Max said.

From a distance, the city hall looked fine, but once they passed through the illusion barrier, they saw the truth. The building was almost leveled. There was a still smoking crater on the spinward side of the building, and the other side only had three standing walls.

There were a dozen guards sifting through the wreckage, slowing bringing intact valuables to the middle of the courtyard. They had a few intact tables there and they lined everything up there, sorted by type.

Ernie stood in front of the tables and said, "Welcome, welcome. You'll have to forgive the poor reception, our treasury is a little worse for wear right now."

Max gave a little polite laugh and said, "I'm sure you will rebuild quickly."

"Probably. We still haven't decided if we will rebuild a fortress or leave it as a false target. We'll see. Anyway, you guys can pick a piece of art, a bag of potato chips, a dungeon artifact, an orb, or a magic card. Any one thing. I know it's a huge reward for one night's work, but I wouldn't be alive without your warning," Ernie stepped back and gestured to the tables dramatically.

Yang glanced at the cards and then grabbed an orb. Lily did the same. Bisrat gravitated towards the potato chip bags. James and Max took a long look at the available dungeon artifacts and magic cards.

Max inspected them one at a time and quietly read off the descriptions to James.

Joint Perfumer

Hygiene tool for many limbed beings. Eliminates body odor and prevent it from returning for one cycle.

Beaded Necklace

Grants water breathing while worn. Also reduces friction when submerged in liquid.

Grasshopper Grieves

When worn, accumulates kinetic energy. Can spend charge all at once to leap forward with stored energy. Max jump distance 124 meters.

Ring of Storage

Stores anything that can pass through the ring's band.

Insulating Gloves

Perfectly isolates hands from all outside forces, including force, friction, and radiation.

String Ring

Produces up to eighty meters of thin string that will adhere to any surface.

Lots of good options there. Max would be happy to have all of them if he was dungeon diving. The string ring in particular would be a great way to quickly set up traps.

If he didn't have a much better storage device, he would be tempted by the storage ring. But his belt was just fine by him, even with its curse.

The gloves were the perfect defense, they could block any sort of attack he could think of. Max almost grabbed the Insulating Gloves before he re-read the description. No friction. He wouldn't be able to pick anything up when he wore these gloves. That wouldn't work for him.

The grieves seemed fantastic. Adding the ability to quickly move around the battlefield would be incredibly useful. He would pick them if he didn't find a magic card he wanted more. He moved over and picked through the options.

There were three Citadel cards there, all of them advanced. Max wanted them all, but he could only have one. Both because that was his reward, and also because he only had one card left to add to his deck before it was full. His six cards would merge into one at that point. This was a big decision.

The Join card was easy to dismiss. Despite all his cards being tools, he didn't actually want to be a construction worker on Spinworld. The other two cards were both great.

He knew from his experience with the Gloves card that he could easily adjust the Boots card to create leg armor. It would be nice to have armor he could make himself instead of relying on Igra woven armor. He had seen today how some attacks could get through it.

On the other hand, this would affect his whole deck. After he merged all six cards, this boot card would tilt the result towards clothing and away from tools.

The chisel would tilt things back towards tools, and Max could imagine dozens of ways he could use a chisel to fight monsters. But he already had a tool meant for cutting, he wasn't sure if a chisel would add much to his deck.

Both cards had a refresh tab, so they had a magic power of some kind. Max asked Ernie about it, but the paper with that information had gone up with the building.

He would have to make up his mind without knowing what magic power these cards granted him. And quickly too. Everyone else had made up their mind a while ago and were impatiently waiting on him.

Max made up his mind and grabbed the Chisel card. He was going for a theme here, might as well lean into it. Depending on the magic spell in the tool, this card might actually be worth adding to his deck and completing his first card merge.

Before he made that permanent choice, he planned on having James test it out for him. It was nice that they were friends again so that was an option. He turned to him and gave him a grin. James grinned back and showed off a ring. Max would have to ask him later which ring he chose.

"Max, can I please keep this chip bag safe in your belt?" Bisrat said.

"Sure. I'm surprised you went with the chips instead of the dungeon artifacts or magic cards."

Bisrat smoothed her hair quills. "Just being practical. It's the most valuable of the bunch to the right buyer."

"What? Really?" James asked. "I sold all my snack chips for a handful of whites in the city of Wild Plums. Did they fleece me?"

Bisrat shrugged. "I don't know what the market for packaged foods is on the third layer. I do know that the last package of chips with this same orange color went for two-fifty whites during the last auction in Coruscant."

"Damn. Shoulda held out for a better offer." James said.

Bisrat consoled him while Max placed the large bag of Doritos in his belt. Apparently people paid well for a taste of home.

Before they left the courtyard, Max said, "Hey Ernie, thanks for the rewards, we really appreciate it. We won't take you up on the guard offer, but we'll help out when we can. Do you know where we can find a place to sleep in town? We won't head out until the morning."

"Yeah, I know a place. Here, I'll come with you," Ernie said and split in two.

One stayed there and the other Ernie led the way through the streets. Max was fairly sure that they were following an illusion, but he really couldn't tell the difference. His eyes and ears were completely fooled.

While they walked, Max showed Bisrat the magic card he had chosen. It was her idea to wait and pick the perfect card for his final before he merged and he wanted her approval.

She nodded. "Yes, that will be perfect. It will match your theme and it's already Advanced. I say go for it."

"That's what I was thinking. I'll probably slot it. But first, I'll have James test it out so I know what the spell is."

"I can tell you what the spell is. I've seen it before. It's a touch based spell that splits things along a plane. Like if you touched it to a monster's waist, it would fall into two pieces. The Lunuk I saw was able to kill an eleven foot tall copper pillbug with a single backstab."

Max tilted his head to the side. "Huh. That's not what I expected, but sounds better than any of the other options I have seen. I guess I'll take your advice."

He placed the card on his chest and willed it into his deck. The Chisel card dissolved into mana and flowed into Max. He could feel the card slot into place. He felt full in a metaphysical way. This was it. He was ready for the merge. Hopefully the first of many.

A blue screen popped up in the middle of his vision.

Max read it through a few times and selected no. If the resulting card was based on the level of his six slotted cards, then he would have to raise them all to six before he merged the cards.

His Hammer and Gloves cards were already at six. He completed their evolution quests and then life distracted him from completing the other cards' evolution quests. He had four more to complete before he felt good about merging his cards. The only question was which one he should start with.

There was Drill, Circular Saw, Augment, and now Chisel. He decided to start with Chisel. He would be experimenting with the card a lot over the next few days to find its limits. He might as well have a direction for those experiments.

After he slotted the Citadel card, it had leveled itself up to four, so he only needed two more white cores to get it to six. He reached into his belt and pulled them out. That left him with only three cores, most of his wealth was with Bisrat. That would worry him if he didn't trust her with his life.

He popped the two cores into his mouth and directed the energy into his new card. A quest popped up moments later.

Citadel Evolution Quest

In order to progress your Chisel card past level six, demonstrate competence in the following three areas: type, sharpness, and durability.

Fabricate three different types of Chisels. [ ]

Create a Chisel with an edge less than 8 microns. [ ]

Fabricate a Chisel with a tensile strength over 780 units. [ ]

This is an optional quest and there is no time limit. You must pass this evolution quest before you can start another.

Max read through the quests. The first one should be easy. The sharpness one seemed like it would be difficult, but he didn't know how sharp eight microns was. The last one was ridiculously vague.

He was certain he could make a durable chisel, but the translation magic failed in conveying how tough it needed to be. It just said 780 units. That could mean stronger than steel or stronger than a neutron star.

The only way to find out was a lot of testing. Thankfully, he had stocked his belt for just such an occasion. He had bundles of grasses ready for transmutation.

His plans were interrupted when they arrived at their destination. Another illusion of Ernie was standing at the door to a hotel, waving them inside. An exhausted looking woman was standing behind a desk. She wordlessly handed them three keys.

James grabbed one and Lily took his arm as they walked away. Apparently they were more of an item than Max had thought. He thought they were still in the kissing phase, and apparently they were at the default sleeping in the same bed phase.

Yang took a key and motioned with her head for Bisrat to follow her. Max thankfully took the last key for himself. Before he left the lobby, he turned to the illusion of Ernie.

Max said, "Thanks for putting us up, thanks for everything really. I wish your ambush had been a bit sooner, but the healing potions and rewards more than made up for it."

Ernie nodded, "No problem. I am always generous with my friends. Just remember that if I ask for a favor in the future. I have a network of friends and informants that might need your help at some point. I help them out in exchange for the inside scoop on current events."

"I love your news program by the way. It's one of the reasons I pushed to warn you of the attack. Spinworld News really helps us all out. Speaking of a network of friends. You might be the best person in the world to help me find my brother."

"There are a lot of people on Spinworld, but I can keep an ear out for him," Ernie said. "You'll only owe me a favor if I can find him for you. What can you tell me about him?"

"If you can find him, I would be happy to owe you two favors. He came to Spinworld eight years ago. He looks like an older version of me with shaggy brown hair. He -" Max cut himself off when a blue popup occluded his vision.

"What the f-"

"What's up? You get a quest? Please don't tell me we got a dungeon break nearby. I got enough shit to handle right now," Ernie's illusion said.

"No, I mean yes. I got a quest. I got the quest. The 'kill a governor and a titan' quest. Do you know what it says? Like exactly what it says?" Max asked.

Ernie tsked and gestured. The illusion of a metal bunker formed around the two of them. "No one can see or hear us now. Yes, I know what it says. Seems like you caught on to the implication quick too."

"It says the Builders are gonna deactivate the biome in 82 days. That's the end of the world, isn't it?" Max said, breathing heavy.

Ernie moved his hands up and down like he was weighing something. "Maybe. Maybe not. No one really knows what Spinworld is or why the Builders created it. Our best guess is that they are here to experiment with magic and study our interactions with it. Some people that get that quest think that when the experiment ends they will turn off the sun and pack away the world so it can be used for the next experiment. They think everyone that doesn't meet the Builders in a few months is going to die a horrible death.

"I personally think that isn't it. It would be such a waste of time and energy to destroy the world. The beings that created this world are powerful, but why would they bother destroying it when they could just leave? That's what I think they are going to do. They are going to leave, and take their magic with them."

Max ran his hands through his blond hair. "That's not much better. Without magic we will be helpless against the monsters all around us."

"Nah, they'll die without magic. People have done experiments and without access to mana, all monsters die. We'll basically be back to square one. It'll be like we're back on Earth, without magic again. Which will suck, sure, but not as much as dying. I came through the portal years ago because I wanted to see a new frontier. Even without magic, Spinworld is a new frontier."

"How can you be so sure? The quest said deactivate. That makes me think this whole world is held together by magic or something. Without mana, we might be just as dead as the monsters."

Ernie dropped his hands. "I ain't gonna lie. You could be right. Maybe this world is going to end in mass genocide and there's nothing I can do about it. I choose to believe that won't happen. Time and time again the Builders have sent quests to save lives, not destroy them. I think the Builders are fundamentally good as a people. Maybe this quest is from that asshole dungeon Builder and nothing will happen in 83 days. We can't know for sure. We can only act on faith."

Max paced back and forth as Ernie talked. The illusion could be right. The last optional quest he had seen was one to save the city from a phase whale. Why would they still send out quests to save people if they were planning on destroying the world soon anyway?

Ernie cleared his throat and said, "It's gonna take you some time to wrap your head around this, I know. I recommend you don't tell anyone you have the quest. Up to you though. I hope I don't have to tell you to keep the exact wording a secret either way, right?"

"Right. It would create mass panic. I won't tell anyone the world is ending in 82 days, don't worry," Max said.

He stared at his room key, glad that he didn't have to share with anyone tonight. He was exhausted, but he didn't expect to get to sleep anytime soon.

"One last thing, and I know how this sounds, but I would appreciate it if you left town in the morning," Ernie said. He threw up his hands when he saw the expression on Max's face. "I know, I know. You just saved my life, you aren't gonna kill me. But my bodyguard would kill me if she knew someone with the quest was still in town."

"Fine, we'll leave town in the morning. Our pirate captain will probably want to get going around then anyway," Max said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, don't be that way. I know you're a good guy."

"I... I'm going to bed," Max said and stomped away.

He walked through the illusionary walls Ernie set up to keep their conversation private. He walked quieter as he got to the rooms since it was in the middle of the night. He unlocked his room and collapsed into the small bed.

Despite his exclamation and his exhaustion, Max didn't get to sleep right away. The kill quest weighed heavily on his mind.

He didn't share in Ernie's optimism. Max had the feeling that the quest was telling him that the whole world would be dismantled in 83 days. Anyone that didn't visit the builders would be dead in a few months.

Probably.

He didn't actually know for sure, which made this whole situation worse. If he knew everyone would be dying soon, then he wouldn't feel bad about killing a governor and bringing James as his guest. He probably wouldn't go without Lily, so maybe they would have to figure out a way to get the quest assigned to one of them.

That was all assuming he knew everyone was dying soon. Since he didn't know, how could he justify murdering a governor? He wouldn't just be killing an innocent man, he would be dooming thousands of magicless people to the tyranny of the powerful. How could he justify all of that for a chance that it was necessary?

Then again, this was the end of the world. If he was mostly sure that Spinworld was going to be destroyed, he had to take the chance, right? But he wasn't mostly sure. He wasn't sure of anything.

He tried to get his brain to turn off and go to sleep, but it didn't work. After an hour of tossing and turning, he decided to distract himself with something fun. His new Citadel card was calling his name.

Max reached into his belt and pulled out a bundle of grass. He only had two more left, so he had to make this count. He focused on the Chisel card and pushed his intent to make it a sharp one. That way he was working on one of his evolution quests at the same time.

The transmutation magic swirled around the grasses and broke them down into motes of light. When the light reformed, Max was holding a small handheld chisel. It looked identical to the one he had in his toolbox back on Earth. It even had the word Stanley engraved into the wooden handle. The tip wasn't very sharp and his sharpness quest hadn't been completed. He would just have to try again.

He was tempted to experiment with the spell and knock off the edge of his bedpost. Trying out a new spell in a hotel room would be rude though. He tucked it into his belt to try out tomorrow.

Another bundle of grass came out and he used it to create a new chisel. This time he went with a solid metal handle and a less acute angle on the chisel blade. It copied the design of a cold chisel used for metalwork.

For his third and final chisel of the night, Max was stumped. He had already created the only two types of chisels he knew about. He could just make a wider chisel, but he didn't want to waste his last bundle if that wasn't going to complete the quest.

Bisrat had said that the spell was touch based. Maybe he should make a chisel with a bit more reach. He mentally focused on the idea of a chisel sword. The magic fought with him, but he focused all of his flow on the idea of a chisel with a super long blade.

When the motes of mana cleared away, he was left holding a chisel with a three foot blade. Better than the other two, but less than what he wanted. Still, it completed one of his evolution quests. He had created three different types of chisels.

Now all he needed to do was create a super sharp chisel and a super strong one. If he had more material to work with, he would try making a tungsten chisel. But he was out, and his mana was tapped. He might as well try to get some rest.

By morning, he had only gotten a few hours of sleep. The kill quest kept him up most of the night. He groggily rose and went downstairs to see if the others were in the hotel lobby. The only one there was Ernie.

The illusion said, "Everyone else is waiting for you at the southern gates. There is a really good breakfast place there. I told them I would hang out here until you woke up and send you their way."

"Sure, sure. Seems more likely you are here to run us out of town after we saved your life and risked our own," Max said.

Ernie's illusion shook his head. "Come on. You know it's not like that. I just wanted to wish you well. Just to show there's no hard feelings, I'll find your brother for free. What did you say his name was?"

Max paused. He really did want to find his brother. "His name is Michael Kraft. He's about 5' 11" and looks a lot like me. He has shaggy brown hair. His skin is probably darker than mine... what?" Max stopped himself because Ernie was giving him a weird look.

"Your brother is Michael Kraft?"

"Yeah?"

"Does he look like this?" Ernie said and gestured to his side.

An illusion of a man appeared next to him. He was tall and thin, with closely chopped brown hair. He wore green fatigues and tan cargo pants. He had a severe look on his face and brown stubble.

Max blinked. "Yes, that's my brother. Do you already know him?"

Ernie chuckled mirthlessly. "I know him. He tried to kill me a few months back. He's the Chairman of Bespin, the floating island on the second layer. He's known about the quest since day one and has been picking off governors left and right."

"Wait, what?" Max said. "I have a hard time believing he's a leader, let alone a mass murderer."

"Believe it. Bespin has been communist for the last five years, and your brother was elected Chairman last year. He's basically their governor, just not recognised by the Builders. He and the other commies have figured out how to get the quest assigned to them. They are flying their city around and killing governors so everyone gets an invite to the sixth layer."

Max swore and put his hands to his temples. "I had no idea."

"I kept it out of the news at first because I didn't want to start a panic. Or encourage copycats. But I've had to start warning people about the commie city because they don't care about collateral damage. I'm surprised you haven't heard the stories over the last few weeks."

"I've been busy," Max said distractedly.

"Well, maybe you should get busy stopping your brother. If anyone can get past their security, it would be you," Ernie said and folded his arms.

"I... I couldn't hurt him. But maybe he'll listen to me and stop killing," Max said.

"I could help you get in, maybe meet up with the other infiltrators we have training up. There is an organization of governors devoted to bringing him down. We need to end his reign of terror and you can be the key to saving everyone's lives."

Max shook his head, "No, I won't join you in fighting him. I've only got your word that he's done anything bad. For all I know this is all a vendetta against him."

Ernie scowled. "I never lie. Ever. It's one of the reasons most governments pay me to spread the news. Maybe you better ask around about my character before you start spouting accusations like that."

Max held up his hands. "Fine, fine. You did me a favor by telling me where my brother is. And you gave us all rewards last night when you didn't have to. I'm gonna leave town now with my friends. I won't take you up on your offer of infiltrators, but I won't help him if he really is out there murdering people."

"Will you really stand by when you see what your brother is doing? Let me at least put you in contact with the anti-terrorist force."

"No, this is my brother. I'm not going to help you kill him." Max said firmly.

Ernie shook his head and faded away. Max looked around the empty lobby and frowned. There was no way of knowing if the governor wasn't spying on him. He hurried out the door.

As he walked south, he thought about how much to tell his friends. The illusionist governor clearly didn't want anyone to know about the countdown to the end of the world. But Max trusted James, Lily, Yang, and Bisrat more than he trusted Ernie. Well, James was shit with secrets, but if there was any secret he could keep, it would be this one. Maybe.

"There's the sleeping beauty!" James said and rose his glass to Max as he walked up.

Max sat heavily at their outdoor breakfast table. They had ordered for him so he nodded and started eating. It was oatmeal with bits of dried mango in it. One of the better meals he had on the first layer.

"Good thing you are here now. We had to buy the sled driver breakfast to convince him to wait for you. I think he was going to leave soon whether you were up or not," Yang said.

Bisrat squinted and leaned over. "Are you alright, Max?"

Max shook his head. "I had a bad night's sleep."

James stretched. "Not me. I slept like a baby."

"Why'd you sleep poorly, Max?" Bisrat asked. "I hope it's not guilt. They attacked us. We had no choice."

Max glanced back to where the illusion of Ernie casually stood in the street. "That's not it. I had a huge revelation. Ernie found my brother."

"No shit? Where is he?" James said and leaned forward.

"Apparently he's the 'chairman' of Bespin. That's the floating city on the second layer. It's a communist city that almost everyone hates. Ernie says that my brother is a murderer. Which I can't believe. I think it's more likely that he's being vilified because he keeps trying to overthrow the governments of the cities he comes across," Max said and shook his head. "Whatever the truth, it's craziness. I can't believe he's caught up in something so... wild."

There was a lot he didn't say, mostly because he knew that Ernie was watching. He decided that he was going to tell his friends everything, but not while the illusion governor was paying attention. He would give it time for the governor to be distracted by something else and then he would spill the beans.

James slammed both hands on the table. "Shit, Max. This is great news. Out of millions of people on Spinworld, you know where your brother is now. The chances of you finding your brother were slim. The fact that he's even alive means that he beat the odds."

Max smiled, "Yeah. It is good news. The best news since we got here. It's just all the stuff that comes with it that mess with my mind."

James slapped Max on the back. "Still, good news. Let's get going. I know I'm rushing you, but the pirate is giving us the stink eye."

He pointed to the far table where their sled driver was nursing a coffee and staring at their group.

"Yeah, alright. Let's go." Max said.

Bisrat signaled to the driver and the six of them walked down the street a bit to the southern gates to the city. While he was installing the impellers on the stern of their land ship, James leaned over and whispered to Max.

"Hey, we were talking earlier," James said, keeping his eyes roving. "We have a bit more loot to collect from our fight last night. The Silver Eagle vaults are basically unguarded now. You up for a bit more skullduggery?"

Max tilted his head and smiled slightly. Almost the entire Silver Eagle Guild had died last night. Ernie and his guards had taken all of the dungeon artifacts and magic cards from the bodies, but that wasn't all of the guild's wealth. They would have left their money and other valuables back at the guild hall. And like James had said, the only people protecting the vault would be their least combat capable members.

"I'm in. Whatever they have left, it's ours. But I don't know if skullduggery is needed. A bit of negotiation might be in order," Max said and tapped the side of his nose.

James chuckled, "Look at you, trying to be all Peaky Blinders. Keep trying, you might get it one day."

Max scoffed, "Whatever. I'm awesome."

James smiled and hopped aboard the land ship. Teasing his friend had the desired effect of cheering him up.

The trip back to New Pants was much smoother than the trip to New New York. The pirate pilot went slow enough for his ski shocks to absorb the impact of sailing across the grassy plains. The only downside was that there were multiple monster attacks along the way.

They didn't need to slow down to deal with the acid rats or straw wolves. But the hill giant made them slow down and the pirate used all of his broadside spears to bring it down. When the stone bee swarm attacked a few minutes later, Max had to jump in to help.

All of his tools were recharged by then, and he let out his frustration by throwing every single hammer he had at the approaching swarm of stone insects. The explosion of blue force was enough to shatter their bodies. Most attacks hit, but some of the magic strikes missed because the spinning hammer was facing the wrong way. Still, Max managed to take out six of them within six seconds.

He wasn't the only one attacking, James was sending out glass shards, and Bisrat threw a swarm of knives. Neither of them could kill the flying monsters, but they could hit the more fragile wings and ground them for Max and Lily to finish off. Her mushroomantis was able to slip its blades through the joints and into the fleshy interior. Yang didn't bother moving from her seat on the ship. Her skill set and cards were entirely unsuited to stone enemies.

Max had most of them down when he realized he still hadn't tested out his new chisels. He jumped out of the ship with his three foot chisel and stabbed it into the closest living monster. The instant the chisel touched the stone exterior, its magic activated. A brief flash of purple magic flashed. A razor thin crack appeared on the monster, as if it had always been there. It split the stone bee in half and it fell apart, dead.

With a shrug, Max went back to his other tools. The chisel was nice, but it worked on touch. He generally didn't like being up front in battles.

When all of the monsters were dead and the eleven white cores collected, they sailed on. Max was cleaning and organizing his tools when he realized he had been using the chisel all wrong. He shouldn't be making a bigger chisel, he should be making smaller ones. If he attached them to the front of crossbow bolts, they would be the perfect ammunition.

They would be even better than the drill tipped arrows he had been using. Splitting a monster in half with a bolt would be way better than piercing it. He slapped his forehead. His drills would be better used in spears too. He needed to revamp his whole arsenal. His hands itched to stop and collect grasses to transmute.

But no. It was time to collect loot from the remnants of the Silver Eagle Guild. They had tried to kill Max and his friends and now he would be filling his storage belt with their money.

New Pants was quiet when they got there late morning. The town had been slowly emptying out since the loss of their governor. The cardless citizens wanted the protection of living in a city with an active governor. Not that it would do them much good. If the builder's quest lasted much longer, there wouldn't be many cities left with a high level protector.

A few of the buildings near the edge of town had collapsed. The magic making the cloth a building material was wearing out. It wouldn't be too much longer before most of the town was uninhabitable.

As they walked towards the guild hall, Max said, "We are clearing out the Silver Eagle's vaults and walking off with anything valuable. But we don't have to kill to do it. I want to give whoever they left a chance to surrender first."

Max reached into his pouch and started handing out hammers. "But we aren't leaving without the loot."

...

"The guild is closed today. You'll have to come back tomorrow," a bored guard said by rote.

The guard was sitting at the front desk in the lobby of the guild hall. The small man had been reading a book, and almost went back to it until he noticed that Max and his friends were still walking towards him.

"Hey! I said we are closed!" the guard shouted as he stood up.

A bowling pin lay on the desk and the guard scrambled to pick it up. He held it out menacingly. Before he could use it, a dark hand reached out from behind him. It was Yang. She grabbed his hand and yanked it upwards.

A wave of force shot upwards from the bowling pin and hit the ceiling. The wooden boards rattled together for a moment and then fell to the floor. The sound of a bowling strike accompanied the magic.

Yang wrenched the artifact away from the guard and pointed it at him.

He held up his hands and said, "No, no, no!"

She ignored his plea and activated the bowling pin. A wave of force hit him and froze him solid. A moment later he tipped over, slamming flat to the ground.

James walked around the desk and looked at the frozen guard. "Did you kill him?"

Yang looked at the artifact. "I don't know. I guess that depends on him. If he was trying to kill us for walking into the guild, then he's dead now. If he was only trying to immobilize us for a time, then he will recover. I guess we will see."

James shook his head and walked off. "You are cold, Yang. Ice cold."

She shrugged and then faded away.

Once again Max was impressed with her mastery over her Camouflage card. Each time she disappeared into the background, it looked like she had turned invisible. Her ability to perfectly match the background was nothing short of astounding.

Some people must have a natural aptitude for certain types of magic. Max wondered if his ability with his Citadel cards was a similar aptitude. He had assumed that Wikipedia's extra details had been his secret to success. But now that he saw what Yang could do with her card, he wondered. Maybe he had more natural skill with Citadel cards than he had thought.

The five of them followed James as he led them through the guild building and towards the vault. Despite being the least martially inclined of the group, he was the one with a magic shield.

Shortly, they arrived at their destination. Two guards stood in front of a small metal door. The wall behind them was solid metal and shone slightly with magic.

"Drop your weapons!" James shouted. "We are getting into that vault."

Both guards raised their weapons instead. One held a rapier, and the other a horseshoe.

Max reached forward and patted James on the shoulder. "You are missing a step, buddy." He turned towards the guards, "Hey guys. You have nothing to protect. The Silver Eagle Guild is dead. They attacked the governor of New New York last night, and they are all dead now. The guy that assigned you to guard this vault is dead. Why don't you

The guy with the rapier dipped his sword. He didn't stand down fully though. He looked towards the senior guard.

The horseshoe guy scoffed and said, "Bullshit. Half our guild is over level twelve, and our Guildmaster is twenty-four. No way they are all dead. You must have heard they were delayed or something. No way you are going to just bluff your way in."

"It's true. They are all dead." James said. "Look. You know Lily and I were sent with the advance team. Why are we back, and no one else is? Not the Guildmaster, not a single lieutenant, no one."

"I... I don't know if plans changed," the guard said hesitantly. Then he shook his head. "Look. No one is getting in this vault today. Doesn't matter what you say, on one is getting in."

Max sighed and glanced towards the others. Seemed like this was going to devolve into a fight. His squad was blocking the hallway and these two didn't have a chance, not against the four visible fighters, let alone Yang who was sneaking up to the horseshoe guy's left.

The rapier guy dropped the tip of his sword to the floor. "Actually, Harris, I think we should listen to them. The Guildmaster said he would be back last night."

Harris shook his head. "No. No one is getting in."

Max said, "You sure you won't change your mind? This guild isn't worthy of your loyalty. They were the bad guys, and it's good they are all dead."

Harris scowled and held up his horseshoe. Max jerked the saw in his hand up and fired the spell. If this was going to end in a fight, he might as well take the first shot. The silver disc shot out of the saw, spinning and growing as it flew.

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They stood fifteen feet away, so the guard didn't have time to flinch before the spell reached him. And missed. The silver spell hit the metal vault wall above him and shattered. Max couldn't believe he had missed from so close. He must have been trying too hard to be fast. He dropped the tool and reached into his pocket for another.

In the meantime, James and Bisrat attacked. They threw their weapons, both of them hammers with activated force spells. The hammers impacted to either side of Harris. Bisrat drew and threw three more knives, each of them missing.

Lily joined in by summoning her two Pawn cards. The drop bear missed too. The mushroomantis tripped for the first time ever. It sprawled to the ground in front of the guard as he counter attacked.

Harris flinched with every attack, but focused on pulling out a potion bottle from the pouch by his side. As the mushroomantis was falling, he threw the bottle at Max.

Max ducked, but needn't have bothered. James' shield flared out and stopped the bottle. It shattered and green liquid fell to the floor, sizzling. It ate into the stone floor, creating a line where the blue shield had protected them.

Mushy the mushroomantis got back up and attacked. Like the others, most of his strikes missed. But his entire mushroom cap was covered in mantis blades, they couldn't all miss. Three of the blades impacted Harris in the gut.

And bounced off.

Yang had come behind him and activated the bowling pin artifact point blank. It froze the guard solid and made the blades deflect off of him. Harris slammed to the floor a moment later. Mushy attacked a few more times after he landed, but the effect made the guard impervious.

"Huh," the other guard said. "I never thought I would see the day. It did save his life." He turned to the rest of them and said, "The horseshoe is lucky, but in order to use it, you have to have bad luck for at least a month. Every day he's tripped, stubbed his toe, lost his keys, got demoted, you name it. He kept telling me it would be worth it one day. I guess he was right."

"So he's not dead, just frozen?" Max asked.

"Yeah, he'll be like that for a few hours. I imagine y'all will be gone by then, right?" the guard said.

"Yep. Open up the vault and we'll split everything six ways," Max said.

The guard laughed. "I don't have the key. Do you think they would trust either of us screw ups with the key to the vault?"

Max turned to James. This was his idea, he must have a way in. James reached back and scratched his head. Max swore.

"How did you think we were going to get in, James?" Max said and gestured to the vault door.

"I don't know, I thought they would have the keys," James said and shrugged.

The guard sheathed his rapier and said, "Nah, man. The boss man took the keys with him. They didn't trust us with the guild's whole war chest."

"War chest?" Max asked.

"Yeah, they weren't going to stop with the governor of New New York. They were going to off governors from all over the first layer. They've been choosing targets and making plans for about two months. After they killed the governor of New Pants we've been preparing for war."

"Wait, they were the ones that killed our governor? Didn't they know the town would fall apart?" Max asked.

The guard gestured to the building all around them. "They knew, they just didn't care. Our guild hall is made of stone and wood, they knew we would be fine even if the rest of the town collapsed."

"Damn them. I'm glad they are all dead now."

"So they're really dead?" the guard asked, surprised.

"Yeah, of course they are. I thought you believed us. Why did you surrender if you thought we were lying?"

"Because it was four against two, and Harris is a shit fighter."

Max shook his head ruefully. "Well, we were telling the truth. Anyway. How do we get in? I'm sure you've thought about it at least some during your long shifts guarding the vault."

"Well, the walls are two inches thick solid steel, so not too thick for a high classer. The real problem is the spell. They got a dungeon artifact inside that makes the steel pretty much invincible."

Max tapped his chin as he thought about a solution. His beard was pretty decent these days. Other people on Spinworld still put the effort into shaving with knives, but Max had been letting his beard grow since they arrived.

He pulled out a hammer and a chisel and set them against the door's hinges. The hinges were set into the door instead of being external, but he could still get the chisel's edge against the hinge.

He activated both spells, one after another. It didn't work. The magic protecting the vault door shimmered and the door was unharmed. Max grimaced. That wasn't going to work. He thought through his other tools. An idea occurred to him and he pulled up the description for his saw again.

Dammit. It specified that it could cut through any mundane material, not any material. Max had been hoping that he would be able to cut through the walls with ease.

Still, there was no reason not to try. He pulled out a fresh circular saw and slotted in a white monster core into the base. Then he knelt near the door's hinges and activated the spinning saw. A high pitched whine filled the room.

For a moment, Max felt like he was back home on the job site. He was using a power tool for its intended purpose instead of fighting monsters.

The moment passed.

The circular saw did everything it could to cut into the metal hinges, but the faint shimmer of magic kept his saw from biting. He leaned in and pushed harder. The magic pushed back in waves, protecting the steel. But it's protection wasn't perfect. Every so often, he would get a nick in. Slowly, his blade started working through the hinge.

Time passed as he did his best to cut through. The others in the small room shifted around and talked with the guard.

Eventually, the saw used up the white core. He got back up and surveyed his progress. He had made it through half of one of the three hinges. At this rate, it would take him two hours and five more cores to make it all the way through.

It was time to try something different.

"Ok, that's taking too long. Let's try the brute force method instead," Max said. He pointed back to the hallway. "I'm gonna throw everything I have at the door. You might want to step back."

They hustled to clear the area and stood at the other end. Max started with the big guns. He had two augmented hammers, he activated their spells and slammed them into the door, one after another.

The blue force slammed into the side of the doorframe, over and over again, for a total of twelve times in the same spot. The enchantment protecting the vault fought valiantly against the repeated impacts, but it wasn't completely successful. The door was dented inwards, twisting and exposing the deadbolts holding the door shut.

Max grinned and pulled out his augmented circular saws. He had three of them. He used one each for the three large bolts holding the door shut. Over and over again the silvery disks flew out and shattered against the protected steel.

He only had one augmented drill in his belt, but that would be plenty for here. He ignited the drills three foot spell and stabbed the lightsaber like blade into the door. It sputtered and gave out after a few seconds. Still, that was just enough. Max pried the door open to reveal their prize.

The vault wasn't as big as he had hoped. It was more like a large closet than a proper bank vault. However, that didn't mean it was empty. There were piles of monster cores lined up in rows. Several hundred whites, an array of multicolored large orbs and two titan cores in the back. And that was only one side.

The other side of the vault held stacks of important papers, a vast array of dungeon artifacts, some magic cards, and stacks of glittering crystals.

Bisrat gasped and covered her mouth. Her hair quills started rattling. The translation magic told Max that it was the Paj version of happy tears.

"Does this mean we are rich now?" James said as he peeked his head over Max's shoulder.

"I think so?" Max said. He turned to the guard. "Hey guy. Sorry, I didn't get your name."

"It's Darren."

"Darren. How much is all this stuff worth? Are we rich-rich now, or just rich?" Max asked.

Darren smiled and looked into the vault. He took a few moments to look at everything, checking shelves and counting rows. He stayed out of the vault though, probably still a bit nervous being around Max after what he did to the vault door.

"Looks like you got enough here to run a small town. You got crystals for power, artifacts for building and farming, cards for cooking and growing, and of course a lot of money in the form of orbs. Yeah. You guys are rich-rich now," Darren said.

"You are rich too. I meant it when I said you got a share," Max said.

Darren's eyes lit up. "Really? Hell yeah. We all rich."

Yang gave Max a look that said what the hell? In retrospect, he might have been a little too generous. Max and his squad risked life and limb to save a city from destruction, Darren just stepped aside when asked. Maybe being a shitty guard wasn't worth a full share.

Darren saw the unspoken conversation and cleared his throat. "So, what's your plan next? Y'all gonna create your own guild? Cus I got some ideas for a better guild name."

Max shook his head. "No, we aren't founding a guild. We won't even stay on the first layer. My brother's on the second layer, and we're heading up to meet him soon."

James cleared his throat. "Actually, we might want to talk about that. Plans and stuff." He looked around the room. "Later though. I think it's time to clear this place out and get out of town. As soon as anyone else hears about what happened to the Silver Eagle Guild, they will have the same idea we did."

"Alright, yeah. Let's divvy stuff up and head out," Max said.

"Can I make a suggestion about my share?" Darren said.

"Sure."

"Sounds like you guys aren't gonna need a lot of the farming and city stuff. Can I keep some of it? I wanna open up the guild hall and give out the farming stuff. It's the only way some of them are going to survive. A lot of the uncarded are trapped here because they can't afford a ticket to a better city," Darren said.

Max winced. Now he felt bad about ignoring the state of the city on their way in. He turned to the others. "That's fine by me. You guys ok with that?"

James and Lily nodded right away. Yang took longer but eventually agreed. Bisrat had glided into the vault and was hovering her hand over the rows of monster cores. She turned back and agreed distractedly.

"Thank you, thank you," Darren said earnestly.

Max said, "Bisrat, you have the best inspect of all of us. Will you please pick out the artifacts and cards we are going to give him? Make sure nothing is cursed while you are at it. Thanks."

She nodded and got to work. Eventually, they gave Darren five artifacts and three cards. Max also gave him two large cores. Darren would need a bit of cash if he was going to succeed in his attempt to save the city.

With that sorted, Max started packing up the entire vault. He had originally planned on only taking his share, but the others insisted he use his dimensional belt. It was by far the safest way to carry around that much wealth. The curse of always wearing his belt meant that it would return even if stolen.

He had to empty out almost all of his tools to make it all fit. He only kept an augmented circular saw and an augmented drill. The rest of his storage belt was full to the brim with riches. Six new magic cards, two titan cores, twenty eight large cores, one hundred and eighty seven whites, eight dungeon artifacts, and thirty-one crystals.

As he was finishing loading up the last one, Max stopped and turned to Bisrat. "What are these crystals anyway? I get from context that they are valuable, but what are they used for, exactly?"

"It's crystalized mana. They can be used for all sorts of things. Usually they are fuel for vehicles and appliances. They are also useful for carving enchantments or constructing vehicles. They are more valuable than a white core, but less than a greater core."

"Sounds like they are pretty useful. How come they aren't more valuable?"

"I think the Builders are to blame. They have limited the type of enchantments that work on Spinworld. Dozens of scholars have attempted to recreate spells from magic cards, but only a few of them work. They say that recreating any spell is possible, but only some of them will activate. The ones reinforcing city walls, condensing water, and stabilizing flight are the only ones I can think of right now," Bisrat said.

Max frowned. "The more I hear about the Builders, the less I like them."

Bisrat shrugged. "Just like any group of people; some are good, some are bad. Anyway, let's talk about next steps. You mentioned you wanted to go visit your brother up on the floating city, Bespin. I was hoping we could do something else first. I've got enough to pay off my friend's debt now. If we swing by Coruscant first, I can pay off their debt and you can meet my friend Taci. Maybe he can join our party."

"Yeah, maybe," Max said noncommittally as he headed out of the vault.

They all said their goodbyes to Darren. They had only known him for a few minutes, but there was something laudable about a guy that wants to use his wealth to save a city.

Max might feel guilty about not doing the same, but he didn't know if this world would exist in 82 days. His priority was finding his brother and maybe convincing the Builders not to blow up the world.

As they walked down the city street, Lily asked, "When are we heading out? Oh, and where's Gus? Is he alright?"

Max scoffed. "He's fine. Just an asshole. After I found out you two were being held against your will, I asked him to help me rescue you. He said no. Didn't even think about it for a second. We aren't taking him with us when we leave. Which may take a few days. I already contracted with the local Igra blacksmiths to get all of us a set of armor. It will take time for them to repair my and Bisrat's armor, and make custom sets for the three of you."

"Nice," James said and pumped his fist.

Yang appeared to their right. "If the big idiot is no longer with us, who will be our front man?"

"You mean tank? I found a replacement already. Her name is Asta. She's this tall scandinavian woman with a card that reflects hits. She's still a little green, but I think she'll work great as our tank with a little training."

"We are all still green. It has not been long since we arrived here," Yang said.

Max rose his eyebrows at her. "You are anything but green when it comes to fighting and killing."

She said nothing and used her Camouflage card to disappear again.

"Actually, I was hoping we could take it easy for a while," Lily said. "Last few days have been kind of traumatic. Maybe we don't fight at all for a while? We can use our riches to relax for a month or six before we decide on what to do next. I know you want to see your brother, Max. But you know where he is now. Why not send a letter and ask him to meet us on this layer instead?"

Max bit his lip. Should he tell them about the world ending and risk panic within the team and world? Or give them a week to get calm again and then make up a story as to why they have to go to the second layer?

Max tilted his head back and forth as he thought about what to tell them. "Actually, I think fighting is going to be in our future. We can take a week or two off, but we need to get ready to head south. Both to meet my brother and because of this other thing I recently learned."

"What other thing?" James asked.

"I don't want to tell you just yet. I don't know if it's true or not. I don't want to worry you if it turns out to be nothing."

"Ok, now I have to know." James said and pulled Max closer. He stared him in the eyes and whispered, "What's your secret?"

Max laughed and pushed James away. "It's no big deal. I'll tell you about it later."

"No, seriously, tell me. I can handle it," James said, his playfulness gone.

"Alright, fine. But not here, not right now," Max said and gestured to the other people in the streets.

James wasn't happy, but he agreed to wait until later that day. The five of them split up then, each with different tasks. Bisrat went back to the pirate guy to book their trip to Coruscant. Yang said she had a thing and disappeared. James and Lily went to buy replacements for the things they had lost in New New York.

Max's job was to find Asta and see if she wanted to stick with the new party. Now that James and Lily were in and Gus was out, that might change her mind about joining them. Probably not. Gus was a jerk, and James and Lily were awesome. Still, it was a good idea to check with her and make sure she was up for traveling to the second layer and beyond.

Max's heart fell as he realized he would have to tell her too. The world might be ending in 82 days, if the Builder quest could be trusted. He would have to tell his whole party why he would be pushing for the sixth layer.

It took longer than he expected to track down Asta. The town was small, starting to fall apart, and almost empty, but there were still a few thousand people living there. And unfortunately, most of them didn't know each other. Still, there were only so many places to look and he found them at one of the few working restaurants in town, The Crow Bar.

"Asta! Finally. It took forever to find you," Max said. "Are these your friends?"

The tall scandinavian woman was sitting at a small table, sipping a dark beer. She was across from two smaller women, one with thick curly hair and the other with a ragged pixie cut.

Asta looked surprised. "Max? Hello. Am I late for something? I thought you said to meet up at the hotel in a few days."

Max shook his head, "No, no, you are not late or anything. Plans have changed and I wanted to talk to you about it. Can I sit?"

"Yes, please," Asta said and pulled over a chair to their table. "Max, these are my good friends, Sylvia and Mallorca. We came in on the same wave and have stuck together ever since."

"Nice to meet you ladies," Max said and nodded to them both.

They gave them polite nods but didn't say anything. Max wasn't offended. The gender ratio probably made them standoffish by necessity. It turns out, men are way more willing to risk their lives on a strange portal than women. Women were rare on spinworld and he assumed that the three of them got hit on all the time.

"So, what's changed about your plans?" Asta asked and took a sip of her drink.

"Several things. First off, our party members have changed. Gus is out, and my friends James and Lily are in. I would like you to meet them to make sure you still want to fight with us. The next big change is that we are going to be leaving town in a few days. As soon as all of us are armored up, we are heading to Coruscant and then to the second and third layers. We are going to focus on leveling up and heading south, not just making money anymore. These are big changes and I understand if you don't want to stick with us. You still get a new set of armor either way."

Asta ran her hands through her short blond hair. "That is a big change. I knew we might be moving, what with the city collapsing, but this something else. Why the rush to go to the lower layers? What changed?"

"I can't tell you that now, I'll explain if you stay in our party. You don't have to decide today. Meet us at Steel Appeal tomorrow after lunch. You can meet James and Lily and get to know Bisrat and me better. You can make your decision after you have the armor."

"That is very gracious of you. Thank you. I will need a few days to decide. If I come with you, can we take my friends with? They don't have cards, but they are good people, very hard working."

Max tilted his head back and forth. "We can take you all to Coruscant, sure. But after that, we will be climbing dungeons and traveling through monster infested forests."

"Coruscant is already a blessing, thank you. I'll see you tomorrow and get to know your friends. I am sure I will like them. Hopefully they like me too," Asta joked in a way that made Max think she really was worried about that.

"I'm sure they will love you. I'll let you guys get back to it. See you tomorrow!" Max said and waved to the three of them.

This time all three of them happily waved back. Max could hear them excitedly whispering after he left the bar.

He was on his own for the next few hours. Max could feel his worries about the future try to crowd his mind, but he pushed them away. He decided to focus on something fun for once. Crafting. He walked out of town so he would have plenty of material to transmute.

It was almost time to merge his cards. He didn't want to do that until all cards were over level six though, so he would have to complete out several evolution quests. Bisrat had mentioned that his resulting card would be much better. He had already completed the evolution on his hammer and gloves, now it was time to complete the one for his chisel. He pulled it up to remind himself what he still had to complete.

Citadel Evolution Quest

In order to progress your Chisel card past level six, demonstrate competence in the following three areas: type, sharpness, and durability.

Fabricate three different types of Chisels. [✔]

Create a Chisel with an edge less than 8 microns. [ ]

Fabricate a Chisel with a tensile strength over 780 units. [✔]

This is an optional quest and there is no time limit. You must pass this evolution quest before you can start another.

He couldn't help but laugh to himself. He had already completed two parts of the quest, that only left making a super sharp chisel. Should be fairly simple. It was all about focusing your mind and guiding the magic as it flowed through him.

With a large breath to focus, Max activated his Chisel card. Mana flowed out of his core in a rush, speeding through his body to dive into the bundle of grass. He wrestled with the magic, feeling like he had a much stronger grip on it now that he had upped his flow.

A swarm of tiny lights devoured the grass and left a chisel in its place. He brought it up to his face and gave the edge a critical eye. It seemed sharp, but the proof would be in the quest. Excitedly, Max pulled up the quest description again.

His face fell.

The Citadel quest still showed incomplete. He wrenched another clump of tall grasses from the ground. He would just have to try harder this time. He added something to his mental model, a specification for the edge of the chisel. It needed to be 7 microns thick and no wider.

Mana flowed, lights danced, grass was devoured, and an identical chisel appeared. Another check of the quest showed that he failed. Again.

He grit his teeth and stared at the quest. How thick was seven microns? Did he have to create a monomolecular edge? That couldn't be right. There had to be some other trick to it.

After a few minutes of thought, he realised that the quest wording might be important. The two completed sections of the quest said "Fabricate" but this one said "Create". Did that mean he didn't have to use his magic; could he just sharpen one of the chisels? No way to know without trying it.

Max pulled out one of the circular saws from his belt and pressed the button on the side. The blade spun in place and he slowly pressed the chisel into the width of the blade. Sparks flew as the edge slowly ground down.

When he was done, the edge did seem a lot sharper. A check showed that his quest agreed with him.

Citadel Evolution Quest Complete

Fabricate three different types of Chisels. [✔]

Create a Chisel with an edge less than 8 microns. [✔]

Fabricate a Chisel with a tensile strength over 780 units. [✔]

You have completed all parts of your Chisel evolution quest and may now select one of the following evolutions.

Manifold Chisel - unlock six new chisel designs.

Cutting Chisel - sharpen the blade and enhance the cutting spell.

Strong Chisel - greatly enhance the structural integrity of all creations.

Max almost picked the Cutting Chisel option without considering the other two. It was clearly the best option for combat. He never needed new tool designs and he had never broken a tool. However, he had to keep in mind that he would be merging his six cards soon. He might want to add the strength trait to his new card. Maybe after he merged his card, he could create tougher armor than what the Igra had made him.

Then again, his tools had never been armor. Whatever happened when he merged, he knew he wouldn't get a card that would synergize well with creating armor. However, having sharper tools was a great idea.

He picked Cutting Chisel. He read over the resulting evolution. It was good, mostly the same as the old description, just with a bit about being sharp. He felt good about his decision.

Max still had half his mana pool, so he decided to keep going. He still had the quests for his Drill, Circular Saw, and Augment cards to complete. He decided to go for the Drill quest next. He had a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to complete.

He reached into his belt and fumbled around for a white core. Not for the first time, he wished that his dimensional storage could just put what he wanted in his hand. Instead he had to remember what section of the storage cube he had left things and mentally select where he wanted to move his hand.

Right now he had a belt brimming with treasure, and it took him a few tries to get his hand on a small white core. He popped it into his mouth and willed the energy into his core.

When the system prompt came up, he selected drill and read over the quest. He was confused at first, but then laughed out loud. He had already fulfilled all aspects of the Drill evolution quest and it came up as complete. Apparently he had done plenty of experimentation in the months since he got the card.

Citadel Evolution Quest Complete

Fabricate four different types of Drills. [✔]

Drill through a magically reinforced object [✔]

Remove 324 lbs of material with one drill [✔]

You have completed all parts of your Drill evolution quest and may now select one of the following evolutions.

Manifold Drill - unlock six new types of drill designs.

Piercing Drill - enhance the ability to pierce magically reinforced materials.

Deep Drill - lengthen the piercing spell with additional mana at time of creation.

Max bit his lip as he looked through the options. He didn't want new drill designs, he would probably never pick the manifold option no matter how many times it was offered. However, he wanted both spell enhancements. Who wouldn't want a spell that could pierce through anything? And he would certainly love a longer lightsaber.

Both options would be good for the merge too. He wanted to focus on the spells in his tools and both choices did that. He thought about it for a long while before he made up his mind. In the end, he decided he needed better piercing power. He would need it as he ran into stronger monsters. He selected the Piercing Drill evolution. The evolved card's description was exactly what he expected, so he moved on.

His Augment quest would probably take the longest to complete, since it took a full mana pool every time he used it. He decided to save it for last and go with Circular Saw for now. He pulled out a white core faster this time and activated the evolution quest.

He rubbed his hands together while he read over the quest's three tasks. Unfortunately, he didn't get to complete any of them before he was interrupted.

Max had walked out of the city so he could transmute things that no one owned. He was sure that the people in New Pants were happy he hadn't exchanged their walls for chisels. However, there was a downside to his plan. Outside the walls was outside the protection they provided.

Off to his left the tall grasses were waving as one. It was as if a great wind was moving them, but Max knew that wasn't the case. Spinworld didn't have weather aside from the morning storms. That and the fact that only one section of the grass was moving.

As the rustling grasses grew closer, he heard them. Monsters. They were softly grunting and scrabbling closer. He couldn't see what kind of monster, only that they were shorter than the six foot tall grasses and there were a lot of them.

Max scooped up his tools and ran. Regardless of how weak these layer one monsters were, he didn't want to take on that many monsters at once. As he ran towards the gates, he glanced back to see that the disturbance was following him. An area about fifty feet around was filled with rustling grass headed his way.

The city had cut down the grass for about a hundred feet out from the walls. Max burst out of the tall grass and shouted wordlessly while pointing behind himself. He didn't look back but he knew that the monsters were close behind him.

The guards manning the front gate were slow to respond at first, but when they saw what was following Max, they sprang into action. They slammed the access door shut. A metal thunk sounded as they locked it.

Max stumbled but caught himself. Had they just? They had. They shut him out of the city with monsters on his tail. Unlike buildings in the city, the wall was made of magically reinforced metal. Max couldn't cut through, even with the magic tools in his hand.

"Hey! Let me in!" Max shouted, even though he didn't expect it to do any good.

He reached into his belt and mentally cataloged his tools. It wasn't a lot. He had an Augmented drill, saw, and hammer, plus two charged chisels he had just made. Normally he carried around a lot more firepower, but his magic belt was stuffed to the brim with treasure right now. He glanced over his shoulder to get a look at what was after him.

A dozen monsters had left the tall grasses with more on their tails. They were huge goat-like things. Five feet at the shoulder with four hoved legs. They were furless and heavily muscled, layer after layer of muscles in a grotesque form. Their horns were facing forward, perfect for piercing. Max's Insight triggered.

Devil Goat Level 6

Panic that had been welling up slowed down. These guys were only level 6. That meant that his armor would be more than adequate against the beasts, and all of his tools should kill with a single spell. The only problem was his limited arsenal. That and the fact there were so many of them.

Max kept running towards the wall and pulled out a pair of Augmented tools. His right hand held his saw and his left the drill.

The fully charged and augmented Circular Saw felt heavy in his hands, as if he could feel the magical weight it held. Max waited until he got to the wall to attack. He banged against the wall and yelled, "Let me in."

He had a faint hope that they would let him in, but there was another reason he stopped at the wall. He wanted all of his targets to group up as much as possible.

The devil goats were obliging. Twenty monsters were bunching up, aiming directly at where Max stood up against the wall. They were focused on him with single minded determination.Their forward facing horns were poised to skewer Max when he finally activated his saw.

The stored spell shot out, a horizontal disc spinning through the air, growing wider as it flew. The four foot wide disc sliced through four monsters in one go. Blood sprayed from the monsters as they tumbled to the ground, dead before they knew what hit them. A moment later, another silvery disc shot out, slicing through another three muscled bodies.

The rest of the Devil Goats didn't even flinch as their companions fell. They kept running, aiming their horns at Max's chest. They were feet away now, and he couldn't wait for the next disc to shoot out. Instead, he mentally activated Levitate and jumped as high as he could. He made it halfway up the wall as a half dozen monsters impacted it below him. Their horns snapped and the wall clanged as Max slowly fell to the ground.

Discs three and four shot out as he fell, eliminating three more beasts. Max landed atop a pile of corpses and stumbled. His Flow helped him move, but it wasn't enough to keep him standing. He had the presence of mind to keep his saw pointed out and killed the closest three monsters as he fell to the ground.

With his saw spell spent, Max activated his Augmented drill. A three foot glowing yellow blade appeared at the tip of his handheld drill. A moment later, his backplate clanged as a goat hit it full force. Max was pushed into the dirt from the impact, but remained unharmed. He flipped himself over and swung the glowing yellow blade. He decapitated the devil goat harassing him and climbed to his feet. He started counting to himself. He only had twenty-four seconds before his mini-lightsaber was used up.

There were six monsters left. As Max was counting, the number changed. Arrows rained down from the top of the wall. The guards had finally entered the fight. They shot arrows and spells down at the remaining monsters until all of them were dead.

Max slowly caught his breath as the Devil Goats were cut down. His drill's spell winked out and he tucked it away in his belt.

The door within the gate made a thunk sound and slowly swung out. A young guard poked his head out. "Sorry about that. Rules, you know. You can come in now."

Max gave him a death glare as he stalked inside. He muttered, "Assholes," as he slid by them.

Normally, Max would have been irate about being left out there to die, but he wasn't going to let it get to him. It was partly his fault for not keeping a better watch, and he was leaving this town soon anyway. So what if the guards sucked, this wouldn't be his town soon anyway.

He spent the rest of the day eating good food and catching up with James and Lily. Yang was there too, but she didn't talk much. The tattooed woman kept her back to the wall and an eye on the rest of the small restaurant. Max would have said she was paranoid, but this was a dying town. Anything could happen.

The next day at Steel Appeal, they met up with Asta and ordered four suits of armor. The three Igra weren't happy to have several orders of armor without the accompanying games. Max's deal meant they didn't have to win a game to buy armor. The Igra still weedled out a game each from everyone, to be played over the next four days. The party members just didn't have to win to get their armor.

Max still had to give the Igra several hammers in exchange. Tungsten, titanium, silver, and beryllium. Luckily, his upgrade to his mana pool and his Multiple Hammers card meant that he could transmute them all in one day.

The next day, Max decided to use his mana pool on another class quest. It was nice having the time and mana to devote to something that wasn't monster killing. This time he focused on his Augment card. He was mildly pleased to find one of the quests had already been completed.

Citadel Evolution Quest

In order to progress your Augment card past level six, demonstrate competence in the following three areas:

Double the effectiveness of an embedded spell [✔]

Triple the tensile strength of a handheld object. [ ]

Augment something twice without destroying it. [ ]

This is an optional quest and there is no time limit. You must pass this evolution quest before you can start another.

It was no surprise that he had already doubled the effectiveness of a spell. When he augmented the spell in his Circular Saw, six blades shot out instead of one.

He hadn't yet used the Augment's ability to strengthen a material. He had thought that he could only augment the material or the spell, not both. But since the third quest was to do that, it was clearly possible.

First things first though, he needed to strengthen the material of something. He hadn't ever done that to his tools, because they were already strong enough. He hadn't broken one yet. As long as he was strengthening things, he might as well focus on something that needed to be stronger.

His first thought was his armor. Despite being one of the best armors he could get on the first layer, he had gotten plenty of injuries during the fight against the Silver Eagle Guild.

However, experimenting with your only set of armor was a bad idea. Especially since one of the quests indicated destruction was a likely possibility. With that in mind Max pulled out a length of rope to experiment with instead.

He held the rope tightly and activated his Augment card with a click of a mental button. He quickly guided the spell to augment the physical properties as much as he could. The spell sucked up all of his mana and left him feeling empty.

The rope felt stiff now. It was still flexible to a degree, but it was much more stiff than before. He pulled on it and then checked his quest. The tensile strength quest wasn't completed. Max sat down heavily. He felt hollowed out and it hadn't been enough to complete the quest.

He would need more mana if he was going to put more mana into his Augment card. He had gotten a level up recently, so he had a few points to work with. He threw one point into Broaden and checked to see how much mana it gave him.

His mana pool bumped up from 54 to 66. That still left him with one free point. He pulled up his options as he thought about it.

He still had one final choice to make. Presence or Paranoia. He was fairly sure he would pick Presence. He had been watching Yang since she started investing in Paranoia more and more. She hid with her Camouflage card all the time, even when she was safe. Despite what she said, Max was sure that the stat influenced the way she thought. She was paranoid all the time.

Even though he had made the decision to pick Presence, there was no need to invest in it now. It wouldn't help him fight, and he was positive he would need to do a lot of that soon. The two stats that would help him most with fighting would be Insight or Levitate. The first would help him know what he was fighting, perhaps find a weakness. The second would help him reposition around the battlefield. It would also be useful if he visited his brother up on the flying city of Bespin.

Eventually, Max selected Levitate and brought it up to 8. When he activated it, he felt lighter than ever. He still couldn't fly, but he was fairly sure he would be able to when he hit 12.

Now that he had that squared away, he didn't know what to do with himself. His mana pool was big, but it still refilled slowly. It would be more than an hour before it was full. He wandered around the town a bit, trying to find something to do. He felt like relaxing, giving himself a break. Maybe there was a place playing music or other entertainment options.

He didn't find anything. This town was dying. The buildings were falling apart, most of the residents had fled, and the remaining citizens walked around with a morose look on their faces. He felt like he should share the wealth in his belt. It wouldn't solve anything though.

These people were in real trouble because they lost their governor. Even if he gave them enough money to travel to a city protected by a governor, it wouldn't last. With the Builder's kill quest still out there, all of the governors were going to die. It was only a matter of time.

The only way he could truly fix the problem would be to talk to the Builders directly. His hope was he could sway some of the Builders to cancel the quest. It seemed like some were assholes, but other Builders were clearly good people. Maybe they just needed a push to do the right thing.

Max stood and looked up the curvature of the world. He could see the second and third layers clearly before the distance made the remaining layers too far to see. The sixth layer was out there, waiting with the only solution to their problem. He needed to get there as soon as possible.

"Max, we have a problem," Lily said.

Max sighed. The last few days had been relaxing. He was not surprised that the good times wouldn't last. "What is it?"

"The plains ship captain, the one that dresses like a pirate, wants to leave today, in a few hours."

Max shook his head. "He can't do that, we paid him to stay until everyone had their armor. The last set won't be ready until tomorrow evening."

Lily shrugged helplessly. "He said he is leaving soon, we can be on the ship or not."

"Why?"

"It's the other citizens. They have scraped up enough money to buy passage to Coruscant and he wants to take their money."

Max ran his hands through his hair. "Can we just pay him more money? We got a lot from the vault."

Lily looked away. "Yeah, probably. But um... Maybe we shouldn't?"

Max nodded as he looked around the nearly empty hotel lobby. "I get what you mean. This town is dying. We shouldn't pay extra so people who are trying to leave don't get the transport they need. But what about James and Yang's armor? Steel Appeal aren't done with their sets yet."

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we just wait for him to come back and go then?"

"No, I don't want to delay. Plus, I don't know if we can trust that he'll come back. I don't want to let him leave without us. Let's go talk to Yang and James and see what they think," Max said and stood up.

They found James right away, but finding Yang took much longer. Max used every bit of his Insight to look for clouds of mana floating around. Eventually he found her sitting on a roof near city hall. She was on the second floor, sitting with a good few of most of the town.

He ran towards the building, activating his Levitate at the last moment to jump as high as possible. He made it most of the way up the building, and did a wall run to make it to the top. He almost lost his balance on the edge of the roof, but Yang reached out and grabbed his arm. She stabilized him and he sat down next to her.

"Thanks," Max said. He looked around. "Nice view up here."

Yang grunted, but didn't say anything. Max let the silence stretch before he said anything.

"You doing ok?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm fine," she gruffly replied. She started to fade into the background and then snapped back to normalcy. "Actually, no. I'm not fine."

"What's wrong?"

"It's this Paranoia. Even when we are safe here, I can't help but hide. I've always been wary, you learn that on the streets. But I pushed my Paranoia stat too high. The urge to hide, to mistrust others, it's overwhelming."

Max wanted to downplay her concern, but he did find her on the roof of a building using her Camouflage card in the middle of a safe city. "I'm sorry. That's got to be rough. I'm surprised it's hitting you so hard though. Other people said it was a mild effect. Do you think it just takes practice to get used to?"

"No, yes. Maybe," Yang said and sighed. "I feel all jumbled up inside. Just talking to you about it is like pulling teeth. I have to force myself. I feel like I'm giving up secrets."

Max nodded seriously. "You can trust me, I promise. And I think you are on the right path, pushing back against your Paranoia. You can tell me anything. Or maybe talk to Lily if you don't want to open up to me."

Yang nodded and looked off into the distance. "I think I'll keep pushing back, practicing not being so paranoid. Speaking of which, it tears me up inside that you are carrying all our loot. I keep thinking you are going to run off with it. Which is dumb, because I didn't even do much to get it. It wasn't my idea or my cards that let us open the vault."

"I hadn't thought of that, I'm sorry. I can give you your share now if you want?"

"No, keep it. It makes the most sense for you to carry it. It's just hard."

Max patted her on the shoulder. They sat in a companionable silence for a bit before he explained why he was there. She agreed to forgo her armor in exchange for a guaranteed ride out of here. The town was dying and she didn't want to get stuck here.

After their conversation Max activated his Levitate and jumped down from the second story roof. He fell faster than he had expected, but the impact wasn't bad. It was like he had fallen five feet, not twenty-five.

After he talked to the others, everyone agreed to leave tomorrow. Lily suggested that they tell the pirate that others could join them as well. The land ship was big enough to hold 20 people, so there was no reason to just take the six of them.

Max spent the rest of the day and the next morning emptying out his mana pool. The Augment card evolution quest was giving him real trouble. He crossed off the strength portion of the quest right away, the extra mana was all he needed to triple the strength of a length of rope.

The third portion of the quest was giving him real trouble though. It wanted him to augment the strength of the material and the magic spell within. He tried augmenting the hammer's metal then it's super strike, and it fell into pieces. When his mana was full again, he tried the reverse. It failed again. Next, he tried different tools. But no matter what he tried, the tool broke apart when he hit it with a second Augment. It seemed impossible.

It was particularly infuriating because each use of Augment used at least 42 mana, most of his mana pool. He spent the vast majority of the time waiting for his mana pool to refill, only to fail again.

The frustration led him to do something he thought he would never do. He bought a mana potion. As a Citadel card user, he never thought he would run out of mana at a bad time, after all, preparation was his main tool for fighting, not active spells. But he figured since he would be spending most of his mana pool on experiments for the next few days, he needed some insurance. Since he was destroying the tools as he made them, he didn't have his standard belt full of magic attacks. He might need to make tools on the fly during his journey.

As they were loading up the pirate's land ship, Max ran into an unpleasant reminder of the past. Gus.

"Look who the cat dragged in. I should have known y'all would follow me," Gus said and put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his seat.

"What are you talking about? We hired the captain for this trip. We were nice and let him fill up the other seats, we didn't have to. You are following us, not the other way around," Lily said.

Max stepped between them and said to Lily, "Ignore him. He's not worth a fight."

Gus scoffed, "Ignoring me again? That's all I ever was to you, someone to use and throw away."

Max rounded on him. "How delusional are you? You are the pondscum, not us. Think about it for a second. You are the one that tried to betray us in Wild Plums. Or did you already forget about that? We saved your life by letting you come with us after that. But when James' life needed saving, you refused. Get some self awareness, you asshole."

Gus stood up, trying to use his height to intimidate. He said, "Oh, look at you, all high and mighty. You-"

Max interrupted, "Save it. None of us want to hear it."

Gus' face grew red and he reached out to shove him backwards. Max leaned back and used his Flow to slide underneath the outstretched hands. Gus was unbalanced for a moment when he didn't get the resistance he expected. Max shoved him back upright and stepped back with a smirk.

The pirate captain yelled out, "No fighting! I'll kick you off if you do, even if we are in the middle of the wilds!"

Max stepped back with his hands out. Gus looked like he wanted to throw a punch anyway. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists while staring Max down. Max just smiled back at him.

Eventually, Gus huffed and sat back down. He muttered something as he did, but Max didn't catch it.

The land ship set off a few minutes later. They slid on skis across gently rolling hills covered in tall grass. Gus kept giving Max dirty looks, but didn't get up. Max sighed and relaxed. The bearded troll wasn't a threat to him. Gus had sold all of the cards that would have made him dangerous to have as an enemy.

The gentle hum of the engines and the soft hiss of skis on grass lulled Max into a light sleep. He was woken a few hours later when the ship was attacked by a flock of Axe Quail. They were yellow feathered monsters, about Max readied his tools, but they weren't needed.

Bisrat had apparently prepared for this moment and went all out. She grabbed a handful of pebbles from a large pouch by her side. She slung the small rocks at the approaching monsters as she activated her card.

The Accelerate card increased the pebbles' speed the longer it flew, which meant they were going supersonic by the time they hit the Axe Quail. With a thunderous crack, six monsters went down and two more stumbled. Bisrat repeated the process two more times, until there were only two haggard beasts standing.

She placed a pebble on her palm and flicked it at one of the remaining monsters. It zoomed across the expanse and impacted the Axe Quail in the chest. It took two more steps before it face planted and moved no more. The remaining monster fell to her attacks a few moments later. The pirate slowed and turned the ship so they could collect the white orbs that popped up.

Max clapped her on her armored shoulder. "Hell yeah, Bisrat. You are a menace at a distance. Your talents are wasted on dungeons. We need to take you hunting more often."

She smiled and looked away. "Thanks, but that trick only works on the first layer. Stronger monsters won't fall to a handful of rocks, no matter how fast they are going. And even I had enough knives to do the same trick on the second layer, there usually isn't long enough sightlines. My power needs real distance to take out a bunch of monsters like that."

Max said, "Well then, we'll have to go hunting a few more times before we leave the layer. That was like skeet shooting with a shotgun."

Bistrat grinned but said nothing.

Once the captain collected the monster cores, he handed Bisrat most of them and they were on their way again.

Max kept an eye out for monsters drawn by the thunderous attack, but none were nearby. Instead, he turned his mind back towards his quest. His mana was full and he could try to complete it again. This was his last advancement quest, he couldn't wait to complete it out. He wanted to finally merge his cards and this was the only thing holding him back.

Every time he tried to Augment a tool twice, the magics reinforcing the material and spell fought each other. It always resulted in destabilizing the molecular bonds and making the tool shatter and dissolve. It didn't matter if he did one first or the other, full powered or weak. It had always failed. He needed to try something different this time.

Maybe he could try both spells at once? He didn't quite have enough mana to double cast the Augment card, but maybe the mana potion could help. He cringed at the potential waste of a valuable potion, but if it worked, he would be happy with any expense.

Before he could second guess himself, he downed the potion and started Augmenting as the blue liquid hit his gut. His card wrestled with him as he mentally clicked it twice. Energies roiled around his core and through his veins.

In order to control it, he found himself trying to focus on two things at once. His mind shuddered, bending and almost breaking.

The augments failed, spectacularly.

The drill he was trying to augment shattered into a million blue glowing pieces and plinked against his chest armor. The pirate yelled at him about damaging his ship, but Max showed him that his deck and seats were undamaged. The man grumbled and told him not to do it again.

Max nodded and went back to moping. He had failed, again. Maybe he would have to pay someone to help him complete this quest. It seemed like whatever he did ended in disaster.

A few minutes later, Max felt strangely full. He checked his stat screen and verified his suspicion. Even though he had emptied his pool a moment ago, it was full once more. The mana potion must be one that worked over time.

The feeling got uncomfortable, like his core was a too-full balloon. He grabbed a bit of grass he had prepared earlier and made a Circular Saw just to make the feeling go away. He sighed in relief as the transmutation completed.

A minute later the too-full feeling returned. He needed to bleed off the excess mana again. Max must have bought a better mana potion than he had realized.

Despite just promising not to do this, Max tried completing the quest again. Like last time he focused on the drill and double activated his Augment card. This time instead of trying to split his attention, he tried to force the two spells to merge.

He poured every ounce of willpower into his mana, living a lifetime of focus between one moment and the next.

An eternity that only lasted a second passed.

When the blue lights of the Augments faded, the drill was still there. He had done it! A mental ding sounded. He eagerly pulled up the notice from the system.

Author note: I went back and added a scene of Max completing the Circular Saw quest in chapter 62 so this really was the last quest.

Max had a goofy grin on his face as their land ship sped through purple grasses. He didn't notice the strangely colored grasses, focused on something blue only he could see.

Citadel Evolution Quest Complete

Double the effectiveness of an embedded spell [✔]

Triple the tensile strength of a handheld object. [✔]

Augment something twice without destroying it. [✔]

You have completed all parts of your Augment evolution quest and may now select one of the following evolutions.

Augment Spell - sacrifice the ability to strengthen a material in exchange for greatly enhancing spells embedded within objects.

Augment Material - sacrifice the ability to enhance a spell in exchange for greatly strengthening any material.

Full Augment - with one activation of the card, strengthen material and embedded spells. Also reduces mana cost.

It didn't take long for Max to decide on which evolution to choose. He had never once wished for a stronger tool, but always wanted a better spell. He chose Augment Spell.

He couldn't wait to try out the evolved card, but he was out of mana. He was also anxious to merge his cards together, now that they were all evolved, but decided to hold off. He wanted to get a good set of super Augmented tools before he merged his cards and had to learn how to use his new card.

The pirate ship slid across the rolling hills of grass for the rest of the day. Every so often monsters would try to attack the ship, but most of them couldn't catch up with how fast the landship sped through the grass sea. The few monsters that couldn't be outrun were put down within seconds. There were enough people with offensive magics in the ship that Max didn't even need to help.

Coruscant was within sight by late afternoon. It was still a ways away, but since this world didn't have horizons, they could see their destination from many miles away. It was a big city, one that sprawled across the landscape. It would be close to nighttime by the time they got there.

As he watched the city slowly draw closer, Max watched his mana until he had enough to test out his new Augment Spell card. He had created one of each of his tools and now he was ready to augment one of them. He decided to go with augmenting the drill spell first. It was the least likely to cause a problem testing.

Activating the evolved card was much like the old one, it took most of his mana pool and magic sunk deep into the handheld drill. When it was done, Max moved to the side of the ship and held the drill over the railing before he mentally activated the spell.

A yellow light speared out from the tip of the drill, quickly reaching five feet long. It stopped there and thrummed with a low hum. Max held the drill steady, lopping off the heads of the grass they were sailing through. As he did, he counted in his head. When he got to 56 seconds, it finally cut out.

A wide grin spread across Max's face. He had a lightsaber. A real, honest to Jedi, lightsaber. He decided right then and there to make a half dozen of them so he always had plenty for melee fights. It would be so badass to lop off a monster's hand and kick it off a cliff.

The low mana of the first layer meant that he only had three drills prepared by the time they neared Coruscant. The huge city loomed ahead of them. The city walls were obsidian black, glinting slightly in the sunlight. They stretched twenty feet into the sky, but most buildings in the city were taller than the walls.

Coruscant was constructed from dozens of different methods, some wood, others bone, still others stone and metal. They all had a similar style though, hexagon shapes throughout. Every building had six walls and the doorways and windows were hexagonal as well.

Despite the fact that the ship stopped thirty feet from the wall, the sounds of a crowded city assaulted their ears. It reminded Max of when he visited New York, a constant drone of voices and vehicles. He paid the pirate the agreed upon price and got in line to enter the city.

Their group of twenty weren't the only ones in line. There were about thirty more people in line. They looked like war refugees, battered and beat down. Most of them were carrying their lives on their backs. There was an argument up at front of the line, probably what had created the holdup at the gate in the first place.

Just as Max was considering walking to the front of the line to see what the holdup was, a family of four got out of line. The father was rail thin and yelled and swore at the guards as he walked away.

The line moved faster after that, some getting in right away, and others being turned away after an argument. By the time Max got to the front of the line, he had figured out what the issue was.

An angry looking guard said, "It costs one white core or a thousand knuts to enter the city. That's per person and there is no negotiation."

Max reached into his bag and pulled out six white orbs. "That's kind of expensive, isn't it?"

"The city is full, alright? We don't have the room or resources to feed all of the poor and destitute that show up at the gate."

Max handed over the orbs and said, "I guess you gotta do what's best for the city. Still, it's tough seeing a family with little kids get turned away."

The guard's face softened as Max paid him. "I don't like it either. But there are only so many buildings inside the walls, only so much food we can grow. If we let everyone in, someone is going homeless and starving. It's for the best."

Max tsked and followed his team through the gates. He glanced back and a sinking feeling hit him. There were eight people off to the side of the city gates now, people without money or useful cards. They were probably going to die out here.

He cursed himself silently while he dug into his belt and pulled out a handful of cores. "I'll pay for them. Go ahead and let those people in, I'll pay."

The guard took the white cores and shook his head. "This won't solve anything, you know. And you aren't doing these people any favors. They aren't going to be able to afford food or rent inside. Another group is going to show up tomorrow with the same problem. You can't save everyone."

Max pointed to the family and said, "I can save them. That'll have to be enough for today."

The husband of the family gave Max a nod as he led his family through the gates. His wife was much more effusive with her thanks. Max quickly grew embarrassed and extricated himself as soon as possible.

Once everyone was inside the gates, Max hurried over to his party. He said, "Sorry about the wait. And don't worry, that money is coming out of my share, not yours."

Lily shook her head, "No, no. It comes from all of us. I'm embarrassed I didn't think of it myself."

James and Yang quickly agreed. Asta looked at her feet instead of saying anything.

Bisrat said, "The guard is right. You can't save everyone. But that doesn't mean we need to turn away from those we can help. I'm happy to be part of your party, Max. But I'll still take my full share. I need all I can get to help my friends. Speaking of which, I want to find them before we lose the light. We should probably find a hotel together before we split up though."

"Right. Do you have any suggestions?" Max asked. "You used to live here, right?"

"I did. The Calcium Inn is that bone building you can see in the distance. Fair prices, good food. We can start there. Normally I would say they always have room, but with the overcrowding the guard mentioned, who knows."

They followed Bisrat through the busy city, weaving through crowds and carts. There were no flying vehicles like the ones on the second and third layers. However, there were plenty of hand drawn carts and a few magical or mechanical ones.

The Calcium Inn was four stories tall, bone white and studded with blue glass windows. They walked through the hexagonal doorway and up to the reception desk. Max was distracted by something as Bisrat discussed getting rooms.

The place smelled strange. It wasn't bad exactly, only unusual. Max took several deep breaths before he realized what he was smelling. The scent of bone suffused the entire building. It was a slightly sweet, dusty smell.

"You OK with that, Max?" Bisrat asked.

"Sure," Max replied automatically.

His brain caught up a moment later. She had been talking about rooms, and booked four of them for two nights. He needed to pay now. He handed over two cores and got forty knuts in change.

Max opened his mouth to ask about room assignments, but Bisrat was already leaving. The sun would be setting soon so she had to hurry to find her friends. The remaining five party members decided to eat at the hotel's restaurant and make it an early night.

The dinner... wasn't great. It was a Paj restaurant and they served pan fried purple veggies with monster meat rice. Although humans could eat Paj food, clearly their taste palettes were very different. It was gritty and starchy with spices that shouldn't be in the same room, let alone the same dish. Max ate the whole thing because he was hungry, but vowed to go somewhere else for the rest of his meals in the city.

"I'll stay down here to give Bisrat her key when she gets back. Y'all can take your keys and go to bed or out on the town. We'll meet in the lobby at noon to talk next steps," Max said.

James snagged one of the magic stones acting as a key and said, "You gonna tell us your secret then?"

"Yeah, I decided everyone needs to know, even though it's dangerous info."

"Sounds good, talk to you then," James said happily.

Asta and Yang took another key and Max stayed put with the remaining two room keys. Night fell while they were eating, so the lobby was empty other than the receptionist. Max gave her an awkward wave and sat down on their only furniture, a long bone bench.

He sat there in silence, twiddling his thumbs. He wanted to transmute new tools, but he didn't have any feedstock. He really wanted to merge his cards, but he knew he needed to prepare a bit more first.

After ten minutes of boredom, Max had an idea. He walked over to the receptionist and said, "Do you happen to have any trash I could use? I have a Citadel card and I want to make stuff while I wait for my friends."

The receptionist nodded and said, "Yeah, we get that all the time. Any restrictions, like organic or nonorganic?"

"No, anything mundane should do. As long as it doesn't have mana, I can work with it."

She nodded appreciatively, "That makes things easier. Wait here, I'll be right back."

She hurried over to the hotel restaurant and slipped into the back. A minute later she came out with a wooden crate full of kitchen scraps. Max happily grabbed a handful and transmuted a drill. He had enough mana to use Augment Spell on it, but decided to make more drills while he had the material. By the time the scraps were gone, his mana was out too. He had made three more drills, and one more circular saw and chisel.

He stood up and gave the empty crate back to the receptionist. Then it was back to waiting. He found himself really wishing his phone still worked so he could pass the time.

Finally, a half hour later, three Paj slithered into the lobby. A confident Bisrat was leading two poorly dressed people. One was a tall man that warily looked around the lobby, the other was a short woman perpetually scowling. Max hopped up and walked over.

"Hello, you must be Bisrat's friends. I'm Max," he said and held out a hand to shake.

The newcomers looked at his hand in confusion before Bisrat said, "It's a human greeting. You grasp palms and move up and down once."

They hesitantly shook his hand while Max internally cursed himself for making it awkward.

"Hello Max, my name is Taci and my girlfriend here is Selamawit," the tall Paj said haltingly.

Max smiled to put him at ease. "Glad to meet you. Bisrat speaks highly of you both," he lied.

She said Taci was great, but Selamawit was overconfident. Bisrat was supposed to only recruit Taci, something must have gone wrong. Max expected to have to be the bad guy soon and tell Selamawit she couldn't join the party. As it was, he was already going to have to leave someone outside if their party ran a dungeon. With Taci they were 7 and dungeons only allowed parties of 6. He'd have to discuss it with Bisrat later.

What he didn't understand is why her friends were here in the first place. Selamawit cleared that up right away.

"Bisrat said you had a room? If you really do, we'll take it. Sleeping in a tent has been tough," she said and held out her hand.

Max understood now and fished out a stone key. She snatched it out of his hand and looked it over.

"Thanks," Selamawit said, her voice softening. "Sorry if I'm being rude. The last month has been the worst. I'll be better company once we are well rested. Come on Tasi, let's go."

The two Paj slithered off, heading for the stairs. Max noticed their torn and battered bags on top of their centipede tails. That combined with their ratty clothing painted a heartbreaking picture.

"Sorry about her. She's normally much nicer. It's just been a lot for them recently," Bisrat said.

"It's fine." Max said. "We can talk again tomorrow around lunchtime."

He realized what he must have missed earlier. Bisrat booked four rooms and asked him something. Bisrat had been asking him if he was ok with sharing a room with her. Despite knowing it was platonic, his imagination started running wild. He turned and headed towards the stairs so she wouldn't see his face turning red.

"So, uh. I guess I could take the floor and you could take the bed?" Max suggested as he stared at the only bed in the room.

Bisrat laughed lightly. "Did you forget? I'm using my bedroll. Human beds are uncomfortable for Paj unless they are much larger."

"I must have missed that," Max said. He had missed a lot of the planning when they were booking rooms.

She rolled out her U shaped bedroll and started prepping for bed. She removed all of her armor, something Max hadn't seen yet, even when they were in town. It seemed like she only now considered herself safe enough to not wear armor. He looked away as he was reminded her upper half was conventionally attractive.

As he was taking off his own armor, he found a spot in the corner of the room to unload everything in his belt. It needed to be empty before midnight when the belt reset with five new tasks.

While he was working Bisrat said, "That is a lot. I forgot how much we looted from them. We should look into attending an auction. The Jade Tail auction is held once a week, I think the next one is in two days."

"I had planned on going shopping, after we split up everyone's share. What can we get at auction that we couldn't at a regular store?"

"The best artifacts, the ones that are useful in combat, are sold at auction. That and the good magic cards. They even have heart cards. We really should go."

Max nodded along. "Alright. If they have good stuff, we can buy it. But I don't want to buy stuff that is cheaper on the second layer, we are heading that way soon."

"How soon?"

"We can talk specific plans tomorrow. We are meeting with everyone at lunchtime."

Bisrat lay down, her centipede tail wrapping around the bedroll while her humanlike top snuggled into her bedroll. Max closed his eyes and lay back to keep his eyes off her generous portioned form.

She must have realized what he was doing and snickered. "Having trouble keeping your eyes off me?"

"Shut up. I'm being polite," Max groused.

"Sure, sure," she said with a smile on her voice. "At least buy me a courting garland before you ogle me again."

Max's brain studdered. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? That she was open to the idea of dating? He thought she looked very attractive, but he thought plenty of people were attractive. He hadn't really considered the idea of romance with Bisrat.

"I wasn't ogling," Max started before he decided to change the subject. "Hey, lemme ask you something. I finished my final evolution quest. Is there anything else I should do before I merge the cards together?"

She sat up suddenly. "What? Already? Most people take years at an academy before they can complete out all of their quests. How did you finish them all out so quickly?"

Max shrugged, "It didn't seem that hard to me. Maybe I lucked out with easy quests."

"Or maybe you are a natural born Citadel genius." She shook her head. "But to answer your question, yes, there is one final step before you merge them. You have to order the cards in your soul. You can influence the final merge by arranging important cards in the middle of your core, and less important cards towards the outer shell. If you don't move them about, then they all have equal influence on the finished product."

Max blinked. "Huh. I didn't realize I had so much influence on the merged card. I guess I need to decide on what I want out of the card."

"Take your time to think about it. Even when you add cards to your deck and merge again, your first merged card will have an outsized effect on the result."

Max nodded to himself. "I guess I have some thinking to do. I'll sleep on it too."

"You do that, Citadel genius."

Max blew a raspberry at her and turned away. He wasn't going to think about her, he had a merge to prepare for.

The next morning, he peered into his core and examined the representation of all six cards. They were all two words long, having gone through their evolutions. Multiple Hammers, Handy Gloves, Augment Spell, Piercing Drill, Sharp Saw, and Cutting Chisel.

Was there any tool he wanted to put in the middle? His first thought was his hammer, since that was his heart card. He tsked. No, his hammer wasn't that useful these days. It only dealt blunt damage at close range. He could throw the hammer, but if it landed wrong, the magic would be wasted.

The best mix of ranged and close quarters attack was his Sharp Saw. It cut through anything and shot out about 20 feet at its current level. That range would only increase as he continued to level up. He could put his saw in the middle with the other three tools around it, then the Gloves and Augment.

On the other hand, he didn't have to focus his merge on a single tool. He could put his four tools in the middle with the other two on the outside. That way he was more likely to get a more general tool card.

He waffled between those two options for a bit. He briefly considered putting Augment in the middle, since that would likely increase the magic spell in the resulting card, but he didn't want to end up with a card that didn't create anything. He didn't want his combat prowess dependent on finding magic tools.

With that thought, he made up his mind and arranged his tools in the center and the other two cards around them. Then he pulled up that system question that had been lurking in the back of his mind for too long. He was finally ready to merge them.

Max pressed that mental button and watched his core. He felt more than saw the magics stream together, swirling around each other. They moved faster and faster spinning within his soul. Then all at once, the magic slammed together, six points of magic becoming one.

The impact shook him briefly, he felt tired and energized all at once. A glance at his stats showed that he was entirely empty on mana. If he hadn't already been laying in bed, he probably would have fallen to his knees.

He mentally checked his core, there was just one card left. It felt thicker, stronger in some way. He pulled up the description.

His emotions felt like a rollercoaster as he read through the details. It was an exceptional card now, one step better than his advanced cards had been. The toolbox name was intriguing, but not exactly descriptive.

Now he could transmute any matter into his tools. That meant he could rearm himself within a dungeon. Or maybe even use a monster body to make a new tool.

The next line was a major downgrade though. Each new tool would be randomly chosen. That was terrible. And what kind of tools would it be creating, would it give him an alien tool he had no idea how to use? Having two spells on each tool was nice, but how was he supposed to discover their effects if he didn't know how to use that tool?

At least he knew how to get more tools to choose from. Each time he leveled the card up, he would get a new tool to choose from.

The mana cost was way too high though. He would have to wait hours between each use of the card. Hours of wait time only to receive something random. If he didn't have a storage belt, he would .

The refresh was nice though. 0.3 hours was 18 minutes, which meant he would almost always be entering fights with recharged tools. That would save him at some point, he was sure of it.

As he thought through the Toolbox description, he got up and started walking around. He would need to wait until closer to lunchtime before he could test it out.

Unless...

He had a storage belt full of treasure. He could use one of the looted mana potions to speed things up. It would be an incredible waste of money, but you didn't merge your cards every day. He could afford to splurge a little, just today.

The mana potion came out of his belt and down his throat in moments. He eagerly watched it refill his mana pool as he searched for something the hotel room wouldn't mind if he transmuted into a tool. He settled on a serving tray. He would have them add it to his tab when he checked out.

He placed his hand on the tray and clicked the mental button for Toolbox. Bright lights streamed out of his hand, engulfing and devouring the metal tray. Faster than normal, he was left with a new tool in his hand. It was long and thin, something he hadn't seen on this world yet. Staring at it triggered his Inspect.

Torque Wrench - Charged x2

That was a tool he recognised. The perfect tool for getting stubborn nuts off of bolts. And the description said it had two spells. The only question was, what spells did it have, and would they be remotely useful fighting monsters?

He had a lot of testing ahead of him. Shopping too. The party's loot would do them no good if they squirreled it away. They needed to spend it on things that would help them climb better. And not just climbing dungeons. They would need to climb from the first layer all the way to the sixth. That would require some serious firepower.

The only way they would make it was if they all got stronger. Much stronger. But first, Max needed to meet up with everyone and tell them the bad news. He had 61 days to make it to the sixth layer, time was ticking.