I held a chit between two fingers.
It was a thin thing. Rough paper with a message scribbled on top.
Marin had slid it across the counter after my question. He followed by giving me a very elaborate set of instructions on what to do, and where to go. Beyond that, he refused to answer my question.
So I had no choice, I walked.
Past the marketplace. Past shuttered storefronts and ward marks painted near doorframes. Past a narrow street where the wind funnelled hard enough to make my ears sting.
Until I stood in front of an old workshop.
The sign above the door was faded. The front window was grimy, cluttered with rusted tools and dusty odds and ends. No light behind the glass.
I narrowed my eyes, 'This place doesn't really seem active'
I shrugged, "Whatever, he did say to knock twice."
I knocked twice.
The sound felt too loud.
I waited.
A moment later, wood creaked.
The door opened just a finger-width, and a man's eye appeared in the gap.
I could tell he was older than Marin but not frail. Late seventies, maybe. Hair peppered grey. Face hard-lined like it had been carved by smoke and winter. The smell that drifted out from the gap wasn't bread or soap. It was metal, oil, and old heat.
He hummed once, unimpressed, and kept the door mostly shut. "Who's asking?"
I lifted the chit.
His gaze flicked to it immediately.
I raised a brow without meaning to. "Uh?"
He didn't answer. Just extended a hand through the gap.
I slid the chit forward.
He pulled it in, scanned the stamp, then looked at me again. Properly this time. "You know Marin?"
"Somewhat." I nodded.
"That so?" The man gave me a sharp glare. A moment later, he mumbled something to himself.
Finally, the door opened wider.
"Inside," he said.
I stepped through.
The workshop was dark. Not abandoned, but deliberately quiet. Tools hung on the walls, but they were old. I could tell this wasn't a place where work got done. Everything was too perfectly placed. Like a staged set. None of the tools upfront had any wear on it either.
The man saw me eyeing the shop. He shut the door behind me and didn't lock it. He barred it.
"Follow me." He gestured with his chin and walked to the back. The man grunted and slid aside a heavy rug, revealing a hatch.
My brows furled. 'Didn't think there were secret basements here.'
He glanced at me and lifted the hatch to reveal a ladder. "You coming or not?"
I followed.
We descended.
The air changed instantly. Warmer. Drier. The smell of oil thickened. And then, as we reached the bottom, a set of magic lights clicked on.
Not bright. Just enough.
The room below was the opposite of the workshop upstairs.
Organised. Clean. Shelves lined with tools that were sharpened, labelled, and placed like a habit. A workbench with clamps and files laid out in neat rows. A rack of metal blanks. A whetstone basin. A small forge unit tucked into the corner, dark right now but ready.
And along the far wall, a series of crates and racks that immediately caught my eye.
'Weapons'
Some were wrapped in cloth. Some were bare. Some had a fine layer of rust and some gleamed faintly under the lights.
The man leaned against the bench, arms folded, watching me look.
"So," he said, voice flat. "Why the hell does a kid like you want a weapon?"
"To train," I replied.
He stared at me for a beat, then snorted. "Train? For what?"
"Is that necessary to know?" I shot him a look.
His eyes narrowed. "You want my weapons, you answer my questions."
"The Academy", I said. "I'm planning to join soon."
He chortled, "Academy? Guess you're another dreamer. Well, it's not a bad fantasy. What's your name, boy?"
"Noah. Yours?" I quipped.
"Stimeri. Call me that. But first, why don't you have a band?" His eyes drifted to my wrist.
I frowned a little, " Lost it during the blast a few weeks ago. I'm getting a new one soon."
"Figures." Stimeri rubbed his chin.
I glanced around again, then back to him. "What's with the secrecy?"
Stimeri's mouth twitched. He shot me a look as if to ask whether I was serious.
"Do you not know?" he asked, like it was an insult.
"I don't," I said. "That's why I'm asking."
He pushed off the bench and walked toward the weapon racks, fingers brushing a wrapped blade with a familiarity that felt almost affectionate.
"Frontlines eat steel," he said. "You think the war cares about supply schedules. It takes, and it takes, and it takes. So the Coalition decided that in times like these, selling weapons without a permit is illegal. Heck, they even control the supply of raw ores."
I blinked. "Illegal?"
"Illegal," he repeated, satisfied. "No permits, no sales. No repairs for strangers. No crafting on request unless you want the Department of War knocking your teeth out and calling it civic duty."
"That's…" I frowned. "That feels backwards. People still need weapons here. Patrols. Civilians. Even for training."
He smiled at that.
"Exactly," he said. "You hit the mark, kid. You're smarter than you look."
He tapped a finger against the side of his nose like he was sharing a joke.
"The Department does not trust a small town like ours," he continued. "They think weapons disappear. They think they end up in the hands they don't like. Mostly the black markets. So they choke the supply. Permits go to big cities first. They go to official units. They go to anyone with paperwork that stacks tall enough to make a clerk feel important."
He shrugged.
"Out here," he said, spreading his hands, "permits are almost impossible."
I glanced at the organised room, then back up toward the workshop above.
"And because of that," he said, answering my look, "Most smiths and artisans moved. They went where the permits are. Where the coin is. Where the Coalition looks the other way."
"So this town is just supposed to… what. Make do?"
He snorted. "It makes do."
Then his grin returned, a touch more genuine now.
"And some of us keep doing business anyway," he said. "Quietly. Carefully. Like rats in the walls. Still getting caught is a massive pain in the ass. So don't go flapping your lips about this place."
"The easygoing type, eh?" He chuckled, then waved a hand toward the racks and crates.
"Look," he said. "That's what I've got. Most of it is in disrepair. Some of it is junk. Some of it is fine if you know what you're holding. I'll touch it up before it leaves my hands. But do not expect miracles."
I stepped closer.
The weapons were a mismatched graveyard. Laid it out upon a synthetic sheet of fabric and organized by type. There were swords, but most had chipped edges. A few axes had cracked handles. Maces with heads separated from their shafts. Bows warped by poor storage.
My eyes swept over the entire lot till I finally found a pile of spears. I deftly pulled one out of the pile and grabbed it with both hands.
As I flipped it in my hands, I evaluated a few factors. Grip. Balance. Centre of mass. How would it move if I committed to a strike?
I tried another. Then another. But most of the spears I'd found were duds. Merely a piece of scrap metal strapped to a rod.
[Name: Rusty Spear]
[Rank: E]
[Condition: 20%]
[Name: Army Issued Spear]
[Rank: F]
[Condition: 43%]
[Name: Novice Spear]
[Rank: F]
[Condition: 10%]
[Name: Iron Spear]
[Rank: F]
[Condition: 9%]
Stimeri just watched as I went through his stock without interrupting, expression unreadable.
Finally my fingers brushed a spear shaft half buried under a pile of polearms.
I pulled it free.
It looked mediocre.
The wood was dry. The wrapping was frayed. The spearhead was dull. Rust freckled the metal like a disease.
But when I held it properly, the balance settled into my palm with a quiet certainty.
[Name: Southern Troop Spear]
[Rank: D]
[Condition: 38%]
It seemed that [Insight] also preferred this over the others. Its rank was higher than the others. Though rank wasn't always everything, in this case, it did end up making a difference.
I held it up. "This."
Stimeri's eyes flicked over it.
Then he smirked.
"You picked the ugliest one," he said.
"Not much for appearances, honestly," I replied.
His smirk deepened. "You have an eye for quality."
He took the spear from me, turned it in his hands, and made a low hum that sounded almost approving.
"Sit," he said, nodding toward a stool.
He moved to the workbench, set the spear down, and started working. He loosened bindings, checked the shaft, and ran a file over the spearhead. He heated the metal just enough to coax life back into it, then polished away rust until the head caught the light.
The sound of sharpening filled the room.
-Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.-
Time passed in a blur of metal and patience.
I watched his hands more than the spear. They were steady. Scarred. Competent.
An hour. Maybe two.
When he returned, he held the spear out.
It looked like a different weapon. Still plain. Still worn. But now it had an edge.
[Name: Southern Troop Spear]
[Rank: D]
[Condition: 82%]
I glanced at the spear and then back at Stimeri.
'The condition of the spear improved by more than 40%' I was slightly surprised. It was notoriously difficult to improve the condition of a weapon beyond 30%, even for players with maxed-out crafting skills.
But Stimeri had just gone far beyond that. Was he just that skilled? Or was there some other reason? My thoughts spiralled as I shot him a glance.
"You've got quite the skill. It almost feels new." I took the spear in my hand.
"Done this my whole life." Stimeri shrugged. Then he waved his hand, "No need to pay, it's on Marin's tab," He said.
I nodded and started for the stairs.
He stopped me with a grunt and tossed me a cloth.
"Wrap it," he said, nodding at the spearhead.
I caught the cloth.
"If you walk through the street with bare steel," he said, "someone will ask questions. And questions in this town lead to paperwork. Or cuffs. Or both."
I nodded once, wrapped the cloth tight around the spearhead, and tucked it close to my side as I climbed the stairs.
The workshop above swallowed me again, dark and quiet. The cold returned the moment I stepped outside.
I did not look back.
-
Back in the basement, I locked the door behind me and leaned the spear against the table.
For a second, I just stood there, staring.
Then I reached out and carefully unwrapped the cloth.
The spearhead caught the light in a thin, dangerous line.
My hands tightened.
Excitement sparked low in my chest. Not joy. Not comfort.
Familiarity.
I set my feet shoulder-width apart. Adjusted grip. Checked my balance.
A stance.
The first time I'd ever held a spear in Advent, it had felt awkward, like holding a strangely heavy staff.
But as I recalled the last time I had held one, it had felt like an extension of my intent.
Now, it felt like a puzzle. My mind knew what I wanted to do, but my body just couldn't follow along. As if all my instincts had been stripped, leaving behind only reason.
I tackled this sensation the only way I knew.
Practice.
A simple sweep.
Then a jab.
The spear whistled softly through the air, the movement clean enough to make my pulse jump. I shifted, footwork deliberate, and stabbed again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Different angles. Different lines. The kind of basic pattern you drilled until your stance was perfect.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
The last thrust snapped out sharp and controlled, stopping exactly where it should.
The movement was clean.
My body wasn't.
The moment I lowered the spear, my lungs betrayed me.
"Damn. I guess even high immersion wasn't real enough." I coughed.
I had played Advent on high immersion the entire time. Suffice to say, I was intimately familiar with every single spear movement I'd done. After all, to my brain, all that training had felt real.
But as I executed the same moves now, my physique just couldn't compare.
My chest tightened. Sweat rolled down my temples. My forearms started to shake from holding the weapon steady. My legs felt suddenly heavy, like they had been filled with wet sand.
I swallowed, forcing air in.
It came shallow.
I carefully set the spear down, then wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist.
Insight hovered, unasked.
[CONDITION]
Overall: 86%
– Stamina depletion: moderate
– Grip fatigue: high
I stared at the spear and caught my breath. Just as the numbness faded from my palms, I gripped the spear again.
"Okay," I said quietly to myself. "One more time."