Downtown Pittsburgh - 7:49 AM

We walked through the empty, snow-covered streets of downtown without a word spoken between us, though not all was quiet. There were already voices coming from the early morning fog. These were people who were coming to investigate the light of the Guild of Guilds emerging on the surface and the widespread message that the scenario was in full swing.

Still, we made it back unmolested, and we were back in the warmth of the Subspace Depot in no time. Being the gentleman that I was, I allowed Jamie to go in first, though she stopped just a few feet inside. I closed the door and looked around to see what gave her pause.

In the extradimensional space, next to the Angel Express and its loading platform was a familiar food cart. Tail-Gator’s Gator Tails.

“Well, it’s about time he got back,” I said loudly as I headed towards the train.

“You know why this is here?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, it belongs to the Dealer.”

“That’s the treasure hunter you mentioned back in Atlanta, right?”

“Yup. Also, just so you know, he’s an ally. Don’t try any funny business,” I warned her. “He looks mean, but he’s nice enough.”

“Sure,” she said dismissively.

I smirked, shrugged, and turned my attention back to the Angel Express. A golden labradoodle could be seen from the window staring out at us. His ears were alert, his tail was wagging, and he was laser focused on us. Jeff turned to see what he was staring at, and his face lit up when he noticed we were back.

“And that’s Corwin,” I informed Jamie before jumping onto the platform.

When I opened the door, the smell of freshly baked banana bread hit me immediately, and the first thing I focused on was the plate of baked goods on the counter. The second was Corwin running into me.

My legs nearly buckled as he slammed into them, chest puffed out and tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. I moved out of Jamie’s way and knelt down to pet Corwin. “Hey, good boy,” I cooed. “I missed you, yes I did.”

While I was doting on the Evolution Hound, I kept the Weapon Master in my peripheral vision. She reacted well to Corwin, who left me every few seconds to give her a sniff before coming back for more loving. Jamie reached out to offer her hand a few times, and when she got licked she took a step back. I could tell she was pleased.

“Welcome back, you two,” Kayla greeted. Jeff waved, and I gave him a nod. “Since this is your first time, Jamie, this here is the Dealer.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Summers,” the Dealer said, standing up from his seat. He had been having tea with the Mills, and Ashley was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello,” Jamie replied as she looked the alligator up and down. Her eyes had widened slightly in surprise, and I was reminded of a time when I couldn’t pick up on such things before. “Franklin, you told me that he’d look mean, but I just don’t see it.”

The Dealer paused and looked down at me. “You said I looked mean?” he asked as if I had wounded him. “Me? Your old pal, mean?”

Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t help but snicker at his feigned pain. Despite being one of the most wily treasure hunters in the system, he was still dressed like an old man wearing brown overalls and a plaid shirt. Spectacles rested on his wide, scaly snout, and leather loafers adorned his feet.

Of course, he was incredibly dangerous, but he barely looked it.

“Come off it,” I told him before looking at Jamie. “I know you’d prefer not to partake in an extended reunion, so I’m willing to see if he’s got something to fix up your armor quickly so you can get back out there.”

“You know, do you?” the Weapon Master asked before crossing her arms. “I guess I have been making it rather obvious, haven’t I? Sure, that sounds good.”

Standing up, I let Corwin go and he bounded back to Jeff, pushing his head against the man’s chest as he got more attention. Kayla looked at her husband and nodded towards the back of the train. With a nod, her knight slowly got up and started heading to the next car, followed by his loyal hound.

I turned to the treasure hunter. “Dealer, do you have any Canned Armorfix available?”

The alligator snorted. “Something so trivial? Of course, who do you think you’re talking to?” he asked, reaching into the pocket on his overall. When he pulled it back out, he was holding a tall, white spray can with the word Armorfix clumsily written in black marker on it. “50 points and it’s yours.”

“Deal,” I said, snapping open my menu to make the trade. He tossed it to me, and I turned to Jamie. “Alright, take off those shoes and lift your foot in the air.”

Jamie arched an eyebrow as she eyed the can. “Are you sure about that?”

“Positive,” I replied, shaking the Armorfix as I knelt back down. The ball inside rattled around, and I looked up at her expectantly.

“Is this some kind of off brand junk?” she continued. “Because that’s what it looks like.”

“I don’t deal in faulty products,” the Dealer scoffed. “Don’t judge it just because it doesn’t have a fancy label or whatnot. It’ll work, and it’ll save you time. Unless you want to use the washer and dryer and give up a few hours.”

Whether it was the thought of wasting her morning here or trusting the shoddy writing on the side of the can, Jamie wrinkled her nose before she gingerly raised her foot. Once she took off her shoe and tossed it into her inventory, I started spraying the Armorfix.

It started as a thick mist that began coagulating around her armor. It took on the same color and properties as the plastic it was bonding to, and perfectly contoured around her foot. The process wasn’t instantaneous, but it was quick, and I was done in less than a minute. Jamie gently put her foot down, testing it out like it was a new shoe.

“How is it?” Kayla asked.

“Not half bad,” she admitted before holding up the other foot. I started spraying.

“Alright, so, Ashley stayed up all night working on all of these,” Jeff said as he returned to the dining car. I noticed that he had his original rapier, Killer Sting, on his belt, and he was carrying a pair of swords and a thin metal tube. “Finished them about an hour before the Dealer showed up and said not to wake her until it was time for dinner.”

“Are those my swords that Franklin destroyed?” Jamie asked. She was about to put her foot down, but I wasn’t done yet and I grabbed her ankle to keep her up.

“Steady now,” I warned.

“That’s right,” Jeff confirmed. “Ant had some blades that came off of a Ghost Mantis Wasp-“

“Nasty things,” the Dealer interjected.

“Very, but he wanted to get your swords fixed up. Probably because he broke them in the first place.”

“Precisely because I broke them,” I confirmed. “There’ll also be some items that we think use to fix up your shield rather nicely, too. Better than ever, with Ashley on our side.”

I finished up Jamie’s armor and stood up before checking the item description of the spray bottle to see how much was left.

[[Item]]

Canned Armorfix

Shake first, then spray this mixture directly onto any breaks, holes, or missing pieces in magical armor. Does not work on mundane items or anything not considered armor.

This can has been depleted by 23%.

“Well, thank you,” Jamie said awkwardly as she put her other foot down.

Taking the Sun and Moon Scimitars from Jeff, she briefly looked them over. One had been gold and the other silver, and they still had a similar color scheme. Now, however, they were clearly made out of organic material instead of metal. Under normal circumstances that would have made them weaker, but the opposite was true under the Monstersmith’s care.

I watched her eyes flick through their description. “How are they?”

“Firefly and Silhouette, huh?” she asked. “The stats are better, and they come with separate abilities even though the names… Well, the names don’t matter in the first place. I preferred the Sun and Moon Scimitars, but I’ll get used to these.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“Ashley was particularly proud of those,” Jeff said as he offered the Vambrace of Wires to me. I took it from him and slipped it on. “And you, boss, she was curious why you didn’t just run it through the wash and get it fixed up. Complained more than usual.

“Because I didn’t want to risk it,” I answered. “It’s a unique item, so I’d prefer to get it fixed by the source whenever possible.” 

As Jeff nodded at my reasoning, I pulled up the vambrace’s description.

[[Equipped]]

Vambrace of Wires

(Unique Item; +5 Strength, +5 Constitution, Cable Conglomerate skill acquired)

[[Skill]]

Cable Conglomerate

The Vambrace of Wires contains 50 feet of braided wire rope. At your mental command, any to all of this rope may be ejected from any spot on the item. It moves according to your thoughts and returns to the vambrace as easily as it is ejected. You may choose to unravel the strands and control each one individually. You may also choose to cut the rope at specific points, though you no longer have mental control of the pieces no longer attached to the vambrace. This item regenerates wire rope at a rate of 10 feet per hour.

Satisfied that everything was the same, I snapped away the description. “How’s Killer Sting doing now that it’s repaired?”

“Oh, man, better than ever,” Jeff said excitedly. “It’s called Killer Queen now instead of Sting. It gives me a much bigger boost to Strength, Dex, and Gallantry, and, in addition to the Honey Clot skill, it dispenses poison not unlike Amlex’s. Between my rapier and the Stinging Yellow Jacket, Kayla thinks I’m almost guaranteed to leave some kind of debuff every time I strike.”

“Depending on the enemy, of course,” his wife added.

“Of course. Though, it suddenly occurs to me that we're fighting mostly undead,” he said with a sigh. “Might have to bench it until we get to things that it'll actually be useful on.”

“Killer Queen's not bad, Jeff, not bad at all,” I said approvingly. “And don't worry about enemy incompatibility; this may be a zombie apocalypse, but that's not all that's here.”

“Okay, that's good, then.”

Noticing Jamie take a step back towards the door, I held up a finger to tell her to wait and snapped open my inventory to take out a slip of paper.

Jamie started looking through it immediately after I handed it to her. “Are these words supposed to mean something?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“They’re directions,” I answered. “Remember how there were a bunch of signs that didn’t make a lot of sense down in the Pitt? That will lead you down to the building that will become the auction house. It’s at a middling depth, so it’s going to be much harder than the DMV today, but I know you can deal with it. Since you’ll be the one who liberated it, you’ll also be able to become the first VIP. They’ll tell you what that means once you’re at that point.”

“Got it. Patrons sure are something else, aren’t they?” Jamie muttered to herself before reading it over again.

“You’ve got yourself a Patron?” the Dealer asked, sounding surprised. “Good on you, kid. Didn’t realize you wanted to get into all that, all things considered.”

Jamie’s eyes flicked up to the Dealer, then to me, before she decided to let her obvious question slide and return to the paper. I simply shrugged.

“It happened during the Amlex fight, but it wasn’t really on the front of my mind to tell you everything that happened,” I claimed. “We’ll discuss it after Jamie leaves.”

“What about the guard and his traps?” she asked, stowing the note in her inventory. Now that he wasn’t nearly as excited to see me, Corwin was sniffing and circling her. Slowly, she put out her hand and allowed the dog to get used to her scent before she began petting him. A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips; the walls were already starting to thaw.

“He’ll probably be gone, though his traps will remain. They’re mostly noisemakers to scare people off,” I answered as I snapped open the new Guild Menu. It was fast and easy to designate the Angel Express as the guildhall. 

“Then why did we go through all the trouble of sneaking around them?”

“Because I had a Patron quest to make it down there without alerting the guy,” I answered. Jamie didn’t look thrilled by that answer, but there was nothing I could do about that, so I continued. “There are probably people loitering around, but feel free to ignore them on your way down.”

“And I’m assuming you need to invite me to the guild before I go,” the Weapon Master stated.

“Yup, and you should be receiving it now,” I said as I finished sending the invites. The three other humans on the train all looked at the screen that popped up in front of them.

“Sol Lie-gate-us?” Jeff asked, butchering the pronunciation.

“Sol Lee-ga-tus,” I corrected. “It’s Latin, and loosely translates to Fettered Sun.”

“I feel like you’re going to have to explain that a lot,” Kayla said. “But I like it.”

[[Guild Notice]]

Player [Kayla Mills] has accepted your invitation and is now Deputy Guildmaster of Sol Ligatus.

Players [Jeffry Mills & Jamie Summers] have accepted your invitation and are now members of Sol Ligatus.

“Welcome to the team, y’all,” I said, clapping. Jeff joined in, and so did Kayla though her enthusiasm was much more subdued. “Kayla, as Deputy Guildmaster you’ll be the one to invite Ashley once she wakes up, please and thank you.” The Double Agent nodded assent to my request.

“Will that be all, then?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, be safe out there and feel free to explore once you're done. Remember that you have a day off tomorrow, too,” I said, offering her my fist.

Her fist bumped mine before she turned, nodding goodbye towards the Dealer and the Mills, and taking her leave.

“Well, she’s just a regular firecracker, isn’t she?” the Dealer chuckled once she was gone.

“Seems to me like she was a lot more animated when you were destroying her things,” Kayla noted.

“Yeah, well, we were enemies back then,” I answered with a shrug. “She still doesn’t like me much thanks to the Warmonger persona. Which is always fair, but right now I’m also acting as her boss. So we get a much more reserved Jamie Summers. She’ll break out of her shell eventually, though it may only be after my advance pay runs out and she decides to join us on her own.”

“Jamie seems pretty aloof. Think she will?” Jeff asked, taking a seat next to his wife.

“Yes, eventually,” I answered. “I've got too many good contacts and too much good intel to pass the opportunity up.”

The alligator man huffed. ”Speaking of contacts, you and me gotta talk about something that came up.”

“Everything alright?” Kayla asked, clearly concerned. 

“Might be something, might be nothing,” the Dealer replied. “But it's something Anthony should know regardless.”

“Huh, alright. You have some time to walk some tunnels with me?” I asked. “The sooner I get that done, the sooner things can kick off right.”

Stroking his chin for a moment, the Dealer nodded. “Sure. I can meet you down there.”

“I’m going in via Gateway Plaza, so you can find me there.”

“Sounds good. What's next on your docket, anyway?”

I couldn't help but grin. “It's a bit of a two birds with one stone situation,” I told him. “But I'm fixing to rob a bank.”