The Runesmith

Roland stood alone in the wide-open area surrounded by old buildings. Some of them had even caught on fire due to him swinging his fire whips around. Thus he needed to douse them with some water magic, luckily in his bag, he did have the wand he used for cleaning his house with water pressure.

‘I need to report this to the guild... along with that guy...’

He thought back to what happened today. Following Bernir’s beating, he went to the city to disperse some street justice. There he met Armand who attacked him, his reason was probably the test at the guild.

There were a couple of choices here. He could just forget about it, return home with the backpack and that would be it. With the lack of a police force fights like this mostly went unattended unless someone reported them. The party of thugs would probably do no such thing as they were the ones that started this whole predicament.

This left him or Bernir as the witnesses that would need to go to the guards to seek justice. Though after he beat up the other party already they might not even bother in following through. The city guards might even apprehend him for causing damage to the city or performing spells out in the open.

Dropping the case with those ruffians was probably the best choice considering that he did get back his items. That left the guild and Armand who was trying to defend the perpetrators. This was something that he couldn’t just look past anymore. It was clear to him that this person was not thinking straight, just tossing his weight around like he owned the place.

Armand’s level was past the 90’s, which brought him close to the next class change. Past tier 2 a person could change their classes every 25 levels just as with the tier 1 classes. The tier 2 classes could be leveled up to the 50th level. Which most people followed through as there was a certain bonus and special skills if you maxed out.

Some did switch every 25 levels though. For instance, the tier 3 Elementalist mage class required 4 classes of Fire, Wind, Earth, Ice mage to be all leveled up to at least the 25th level. There were other class combinations if a person chose to raise two of those elemental mages to level 50.

Frostfire mage, for instance, there was also supposedly a stronger ‘true’ version of the elemental mage if they managed to max out on all those tier 2 classes before the change. It would take a lot longer but the bonuses a caster would get by maxing out their levels with all the classes allowed for a prestige class. Due to how hard something like this was almost no one actually went through with it.

“Woof!”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

Roland grasped Bernir’s large backpack and carried it over his right shoulder. It was time to return home and sleep this whole thing off.His trip back home was luckily not as eventful as his way into the city. He evaded the pub where he fought the party of tier 2 adventurers. While moving he had to look at his armor, he had gone through quite a bit of spells in this fight.

‘Everything seems fine... the armor seems more used out in the dungeon, but the flame whips on the other hand...’

The experimental part that he used against Armand had dug through the steel prototype that he made. He had made it as a reusable part which he could replace later, the spell was on the stronger side as it pushed the capabilities of tier 2 spells to their limit. He also discovered the biggest weakness of this type of design, it was hard to replace during combat.

It was fine in a one-on-one battle but not if it continued for a long time. When the second party member arrived he needed to go back to his sword and shield. The whips would only function if he used his rune mending skill but this would bring the rank down after activation. It was a skill mostly suited for a worst-case scenario and not in day-to-day combat.

‘Unless I can implement some kind of reloading mechanism this approach might prove fatal if I rely on it too much...’

With Agni riding on his shoulder he left the city, the night had already come. With a little jolt to his helmet, he activated his night vision rune. Thanks to it he could comfortably walk without needing to carry a torch. This had the boon of people not being able to spot him from afar as he wasn’t giving off any light.

When they were close to the house Agni was placed on the ground. The little guy quickly ran out to the entry gate and started to scratch against it. He then promptly bolted inside after Roland opened it up.

“Ugh...Gahhh...”

After closing everything tight Roland heard Bernir’s screams. Concerned with his wounds he rushed inside the house only to spot Agni sitting on his chest and licking his face. The half-dwarf was trying to shove the puppy off him but was unable to escape from the long tongue and slobber.

“I see that you are awake.”

Agni finally jumped off Bernir and ran into the kitchen, from it he brought back the wooden bowl that was made for him. He tossed it on the ground and then started barking.

“Sure sure, you’ve earned your reward.”

Roland chuckled as he tossed Bernir’s backpack to the side. His tracking wolf had done quite the good job. The monster wolf’s nose was quite a miraculous thing, with his pet around he would be able to counter one of his biggest weaknesses. This was of course tracking and spotting hidden enemies.

Bernir rubbed his face that was now covered in wolf slobber. The first thing he did was to look around, after being beaten he was still surprised that he made it back to Roland’s house. He then looked at his body, his broken leg was numb from the healing potion but it was well enough for him to stand on it.

“Boss what did you...”

“Oh, yeah. I brought it back from your ‘friends’. I was sure to return the favor, they won’t be walking straight for a while. You should probably rest for the night, you can sleep on the couch if you’re too tired.”

From the way those thugs were talking about Bernir it was clear that they knew him. Roland moved to the kitchen while Bernir slowly stood up from the ground. The half-dwarf started at his backpack with intent without saying a word.

Roland on the other hand was placing some meat on Agni’s bowl. Thanks to his runic refrigerator it was easy to store. He even constructed an oven for cooking and baking that was powered by his runic engine. After returning to the living room he spotted Bernir, the young man was holding the backpack and looking his way.

“Is something wrong? Do you need another healing potion?”

Before Roland could ask more questions Bernir’s face started contorting in strange ways. It all started with a single tear that ran down his cheek. The floodgates opened up soon after as Bernir started bawling his eyes out. Snot was not far behind as his incoherent wails filled Roland’s room.

“Wait... what...”

He started moving his hands around in a random fashion as he clearly didn’t expect to get this kind of reaction. Bernir was a young man but he didn’t expect him to cry like a child. Even Agni peeked out from the side with a large piece of meat in his mouth. He started running around the crying half-dwarf while mumbling something.

“Uhh... does it hurt that bad?”

“N-no it’s not about that... this is the first time someone has done something like this for me...”

“Ahh...”

Roland scratched the back of his neck while staring at his assistant crying his heart out. He had heard some stories from Bernir’s youth, how his parents died, and how he ended up here with no money, job or friends.

It was respectful that he was able to keep it together for so long while still having a smile on his face. He was also not someone that would blame others for the dark turn his life took. Still, he was a young man that was entering his twenties and alone in this world.

Without no one to lean on, life was tough. Not many people were like Roland that was fine with living alone. He was in the minority as people were social creatures, without others around they would find it hard to live.

This was quite an awkward situation for a socially inept person like Roland. Without knowing what to do he moved over and placed his hand on Bernir’s shoulder. Soon an awkward patting on the shoulder commenced as he tried to cheer his assistant up. His lack of interaction with other people had caused him to not really know what to do in such an ocasion.

The reaction he got was a sharp gaze from this half-dwarf. It made him flinch and take a step back while Bernir used his hand to wipe away some of that snoot.

“I’ll be sure to work even harder from now on, I’ll repay you for this one day Boss!”

“Ah, sure...”

“No you don’t understand, I will be forever grateful! I’ll be your trusted follower for the rest of my life!”

It looked like Bernir was pledging his life to Roland in a sort of vow. The recipient wasn’t really looking for anything in particular in return for his act of revenge. He mostly did it to not look weak and to send a message to anyone that would ever try to bully his workers.

“You’re being too melodramatic... think you should go to sleep before you pass out again.”

Bernir’s wounds were closed due to the potions but that didn’t mean that he was fully healed. He had many broken ribs and cut-up flesh that needed to be mended. These potions that Roland was using weren’t magical elixirs. They mostly kicked the body’s regenerative capabilities into overdrive to mend it.

The materials required for the healing process had to be taken from the body as well as from the potion. This would leave the healed person weakened depending on the type of wound they had suffered. Of course with higher quality potions the strain on the body was lessened and with a high vitality stat, this could also be counteracted.

Bernir’s had a fire in his eyes but after crying his heart out and then getting pumped up he started wobbling around. Roland had to support him with one hand onto the nearby couch.

“Sorry boss, I’ll go to my workshop...”

“It’s fine just rest here, for now, you’ve been through a lot today.”

“Boss...”

Bernir looked like he was about to cry again after being helped to the couch. Roland on the other hand was trying to avoid this show of affection from the bearded half-dwarf. Luckily Bernir was still quite tired so after leaving him on the couch for a few minutes he was dead asleep and snoring like a bear.

“I haven’t used that sound-canceling spell in a while...”

He placed a blanket over his assistant and went away to get undressed and cleaned. Soon it was morning again and the two men had a conversation with each other. Bernir explained in full detail about what this whole thing was about.

“So, they were nothing more than small-time gangsters?”

Roland commented after hearing the explanations. It looked like this group of adventurers used their tier 2 status to strongarm weak people into giving them money. They even did it to weaker adventurer parties like the one that Bernir was in before.

It seemed like the guild was really not being managed well. On one end there were people like Armand that liked to toss their weight around due to being slightly stronger than the regular adventurers. Then we had even worse elements like the party of thugs that exhorted other adventurers for money.

This reveal made Roland worried, something like this could only take place for a couple of reasons. One, the guild master was either incompetent or didn’t care enough to bother with people below a certain tier. It looked like the people being abused were mostly below tier 2 or at the start of this tier.

The test that he went through started looking more as a show of force to keep him in line. Luckily he was able to turn the tables on the person performing the trial. Now another problem arose as he wanted to report this blatant abuse of power to the guild master.

“Boss, are you really going to bring this up with the guild? I think you have done enough...”

Bernir was clearly against it, he was probably afraid that Roland could be putting himself in more trouble than he could handle.

“Of course, that party that attacked you needs to be banned from the guild.”

This was what Roland would like to happen but if a full team of tier 2 adventurers would be outright banned from the adventurer’s guild was to be seen. It was easy to remove tier 1 adventurers from the picture as the materials that they brought to the guild were of low quality. On the other hand, people like these were already able to kill monsters below the 10th level in the dungeon which would bring a lot of coin to the guild in return.

“But what if you get in trouble boss? You don’t need to go to this extent for someone like me...”

“It’s not all about you Bernir, don’t want trash loitering around the adventurer’s guild. If we leave people like that be, they will only get worse. They need to be punished!”

Roland didn’t want to be living in a city that just let adventurers like that roam uncontested. They would only grow big heads and become more unhinged the longer something like this continued. Sooner or later a fatality would happen, Bernir could have easily died yesterday if he wasn’t treated by Roland. Bleeding out in the middle of nowhere.

“We’ll go to the guild today but first I need to check my armor.”

Bernir looked a bit apprehensive about going to the guild. This was of course a normal reaction and Roland knew it. Who would want to face their old bullies right after being beaten half to death?

“What are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

Roland opened up his secret chamber while Bernir was deep in thought. After this experience, he thought that Bernir required some cheering up. What would be better than showing him some of his runic items that he was working on?

“Ah yes, coming boss!”

He didn’t need to tell his half-dwarf assistant again as he sprinted down the stairs into the secret runic lair. Inside were all sorts of runic schematics, diagrams, and designs for Roland’s inventions. The biggest one was in the back which depicted his work in progress on the new and improved runic armor.

“After we are done with the guild, I’ll need to make you some runic equipment. I’ll need to get you something to increase that meager amount of mana you have...”

Roland couldn’t just give Bernir his own mana increasing skill. It required mana sense to be used, something that he didn’t have. The only way of increasing mana capacity for people that didn’t have that skill was through potions or enchanted items. With a big enough mana stone and high-quality runes he would be able to fashion something like this for his assistant. He would also need to fashion a communication device for him if something like this ever happened again.

“Pass me the hammer Bernir, I need to do some repairs.”

“Aye, Boss!”