The next day, life in Hammon’s Bog was strangely normal. The milk was still delivered to his doorstep. The [Laundress], the one who wasn’t a [Witch], still delivered his clean clothes, and he heard Hogg’s snores coming from the other bedroom. He had no idea when Hogg had come home last night; it might’ve been five minutes before Brin woke up, so he left quietly. Outside, people walked the streets of the town like any other day. There were more children everywhere, that was one difference. Now that the town’s cattle had taken over their primary playplace, they’d been pushed to the streets. If anything, it made the town seem happier and more energetic than usual. To these kids, the war was a big adventure. To most of them, at least. Here and there he saw the red, puffy eyes of some child to whom a sudden loss made the war all too real.

A good night’s sleep had closed Brin’s wounds well enough that he wasn’t afraid that he’d open them again, but that didn’t do anything for the soreness. Every part of his body ached, worse even than they had last night. He hoped a quick walk would alleviate some of that, but he was second guessing that decision. He wanted to go back to bed and sleep for three more days. No, he couldn’t afford to do that right now. He needed to know what was going on with the attack.

He made his way to the western gate first and found it closed up tight. There were [Hunters] in the towers, but they weren’t shooting arrows. One on each tower looked outward, head swiveling slowly as if scanning the area, while three more sat on stools. There wasn’t an immediate threat, which gave rise to the question of why not.

No one that he stopped on the street knew any more than he did, although everyone was happy to talk about it as if they knew everything. Sure, he could ask Hogg when he woke up, and he would, but from seeing the walls and the fact that Hogg was asleep instead of out here told him enough. The battle was over for now. The undead had withdrawn. For how long, he didn’t know, and wouldn’t know until they showed up again in force.

He didn’t feel like cooking so he had the vague idea of buying breakfast, but when he got to the public house it was packed to the brim with people. Every single chair was full and many people simply stood around, all of them speaking loudly over each other. He peeked through the window to see Hela running back and forth between the bar and the kitchen, while a harried-looking Effa Peck shouldered her way through the crowd, delivering drinks.

Brin decided to cook for himself today after all. First, he decided to check next door at Perris’ place.

The adventurer’s outfitting shop was more crowded than he’d ever seen it, and a long line went from Perris counter all the way out the door. Brin dutifully stepped to the back of the line, which thankfully moved pretty fast. When he got inside, the shelves were almost bare, picked over by townsfolk suddenly realizing that they needed weapons, armor, and anything they could get. Even Perris’s vaunted display case with his most expensive swords was empty.

By the time Brin got to the front of the line, the crowd in the store was dying down, if only because there wasn’t much left for sale. Backpacks, field rations, knick-knacks, and leather goods like belts remained, but little else.

He expected to see Perris looking as worn-out and exhausted as Hela and Effa, but the man was more cheerful than Brin had ever seen him.

“You look happy! Should I be scared?” said Brin.

Perris gesticulated with his hands, not even bothering to stroke his mustache. “Ha! Not unless you’re here to buy something. I’m having a very good day. After how much I’ve already made today, I won’t have to work again for ten years if I don’t want to! Twenty! No one is even bothering to barter. I say a number, and they slap the money on the table and run. I can’t believe I thought I would have to advertise yesterday. There’s no advertisement as good as an army of the dead.”

“A true life lesson,” said Brin.

“I see you haven’t selected anything. I’m all out of consumables, if that’s what you’re after, and I don’t have time to chat today, regretfully.”

“Oh, no that’s not it. See, I got to thinking. Yesterday, while I was being sliced to pieces, I was thinking about how nice it would be to not get sliced to pieces.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. When you arrived at the battle, you were already covered in wounds. An understandable mistake, but I can tell you where you went wrong: You’re supposed to get wounded during the battle. Not before.”

Brin slapped his forehead. “So that’s how it’s supposed to go. That makes a lot more sense than what I tried.”

“I should start charging for my wisdom, now that I have nothing else left to sell,” Perris said with a grin.

“Actually, I was wondering about my armor,” said Brin.

“Oh, very well,” said Perris. “One moment.”

He went to his back room, and returned a moment later with Brin’s chimera-leather armor. It was as fine as everything Perris made. It was a deep reddish-brown, the chimera’s natural coloring, but finely cut and polished. When Brin had given it to Perris, it had been little more than bloody ragged strips, but now it looked brand new again.

Perris thumped it on the table and sneered at it. “I was right about getting a level off this. It was an absurd amount of work. Ridiculous. I told you when you bought it the first time that I’d repair it for free. I’m amending that promise now: I’ll resize it for free as you get older and I’ll repair small scrapes. If you tear it to pieces again, I’ll have you pay for my time and mana.”

Brin chuckled guiltily. “That’s fair.” If Perris were half the cutthroat that everyone accused him of being, there was no way he would have done this for free even the first time. He guessed that the reason no one was arguing with his prices was because he was still selling everything less than [Value Sense] told them it was worth. “You’re a good man.”

“Keep your voice down if you’re going to talk like that,” Perris said with a sniff.

Brin left the store, and dropped by Calisto’s place next. A sign on the door warned, “Inventory sold out. DO NOT ENTER unless to pick up a finished order. Currently not accepting new orders.”

He thought that Calisto would probably make an exception for him, but he didn’t actually need anything that urgently. He just sort of wanted to buy stuff. He should’ve thought of this before the attack.

Nothing left to do, he wandered over to Davi’s house, and found his friend filling bottles with milk in the workroom while Myra sat on a stack of empty crates chatting with him.

“Wow, Brin! I didn’t think you’d be walking around again so soon,” said Davi. “Mom says that you got all cut up by the same monster that got to Yon. How, um, how are you doing?”

Brin was a little surprised that Bruna had told her family about Basil. Then again, it wasn’t something you could hide forever.

He rolled his shoulder, demonstrating that it was fine, although his muscles groaned in protest. “It looked a lot worse than it was. A good night’s rest and I’m fit as a fiddle. How’s Yon?”

“Mom won’t let him get out of bed until the swelling goes down. Some of his cuts were infected,” said Davi.

Myra stared closely into his eyes. “Are you sure you’re ok? I heard that thing was a [Witch’s] familiar, spying on the town.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Brin. “This isn’t my first time getting cut up like this.”

“Think you might be ready to start our workouts up again soon?” asked Davi.

Brin shook his head. “I think we should postpone those for the time being. We’ll need all our strength for when the undead come back. We don’t want to be caught too tired to lift a sword if the undead come at dawn right after our workout.”

Davi sighed, but nodded. “Do you really think they’ll come back? We gave them a good thrashing.”

“They will,” said Myra, without a hint of doubt.

Brin asked, “What makes you say that?”

“Mom thinks so, and… don’t look at me like that, I said she thinks they’ll come back. She doesn’t know for sure. With everyone putting fate-catchers everywhere she can’t see much with her Skills. But she’s certain they will. She says that they’ve set up an entrenchment in the forest somewhere and they’re grouping up for one big attack. They’re going to wait until they have enough numbers that they can completely overwhelm us. She thinks yesterday’s attack was a mistake, that the [Witch’s] spy sent the call for attack too early, and we all got a bunch of free levels as a result. Even I got some levels.”

Brin used [Inspect].

"That’s insane! I can’t believe you joined the fighting. I thought Zilly was being crazy,” said Brin.

“She was. I stood way, way behind the front lines and bothered the undead with strings where I could. I got pretty good experience whenever I managed to trip one so a real fighter could finish it off,” said Myra.

He couldn’t believe she was already this high level. A quick [Inspect] on Davi showed he had also jumped up. The young [Bard] was at level 22. Davi had already caught up to him. Just how talented were these crazy kids? Well, it made sense. Davi had probably gotten a few levels playing along with Jeffrey, and that was before he jumped into the battle and started crushing undead left and right.

“Alright. You going to hide over there forever?” Myra suddenly asked out of nowhere.

Brin looked to where she was looking and saw a small scaly head poke out from behind some boxes. “Marksi!”

Marksi’s head poked back down. Marksi hated the cold. The fact that he was over there instead of cuddling someone in the refrigerated milk room didn’t look good.

Davi set down the pallet of eggs he’d been about to stack. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing, I–” Brin mentally reviewed what exactly he could tell them. “Hogg put some magic on me for protection against [Witches], and Marksi can’t stand the way it makes me smell. Poor guy.”

“It’s ok, Marksi! It’s still Brin. You like Brin!” said Myra.

Marksi crept out from behind the boxes. He stared at Brin for a long moment, then nodded to himself. Reluctantly, he crept forward, and nudged his head against Brin’s leg. Brin reached down to give him scritches. Marksi endured it, then scampered away again. A safe distance away, he turned back and gave Brin an apologetic frown.

“I understand. It’s fine,” said Brin. “The magic will wear off soon.”

Marksi twitched his tail. Not really yes or no. Maybe understanding? Then scampered away again.

Brin sighed. “You think you could watch him for a few days?” he asked Myra.

“I’d be delighted.”

Marksi didn’t appear again. Even with his aching body, it might’ve been the most painful part of the day. Brin couldn’t exactly ask the [Witches] to remove their protection spell, not when he was still a target. He’d just have to hope that they could reconnect after this was all over. The truth was, Marksi could take care of himself. He could sneak out of this town without a problem if he wasn’t attached to Brin.

“Hey, I meant to ask you something. Is it possible to enchant clothing to erase heat? I was just thinking, the undead can see heat; it’s how they hunt the living. It would help if you could make clothes that erase that,” said Brin.

“Yeah, it’s possible, but it’s not something I could do alone. I’d have to get my Mom to help,” said Myra. When Brin didn’t say no right away, she rushed to add, “You wouldn’t have to talk to her! I’d handle everything.”

Brin tapped his cheek. He’d thought as much. There was no way that Hogg’s expensive leathers didn’t already hide heat. Back when he was an [Illusionist], he could’ve snuck away at any point. When the undead were attacking them after their retreat from Travin’s Bog, and then again when they’d been ambushed in the forest. The only reason he’d stuck around to fight was to protect Brin.

Brin wasn’t sure he would need this, but he had Hogg’s wristband that would give him a few seconds of invisibility. It would be better if he was also completely invisible to the undead. Did he trust Tawna? Well, no, but he trusted the undead less.

“How much?”

When she named a price that was less than a gold, he agreed.

Myra rushed away to get started on his order. He spent some time jamming with Davi on their lutes. Since Davi already knew he was an [Illusionist] Brin used that as an opportunity to mess around with [Call Sound]. He was able to get a few computer-sounding beeps and chirps, but nothing that could be used, unless he needed a really annoying distraction. Still, the Skill was so low-leveled that even that much practice gave him a level.

Hogg woke up later in the day, and reaffirmed the things Myra had told him. The undead were still out there, regrouping. When they had the numbers to destroy Hammon’s Bog without giving them the chance to counter-level, they would come.

He spent some time looking through his glass ring, testing the memories. He couldn’t fast-forward or skim. When he looked at a memory, he was all-in, to a painful degree. He remembered all the pain of the wounds he bore, and they stacked right on top of his current aches. He could, however, jump to different points in the day, so he took quick glimpses into his memories. Everything stored in the glass was how he remembered it in person, so he didn’t think anything had messed with his memories. It shouldn’t be possible with the protection the circle of [Witches] had given him, but it didn’t hurt to check.

Hogg gave him some words in the Language that let Brin project his own voice. He could speak, and use [Call Sound] to dampen his voice and project it from a glass bead, and the range on that was actually pretty far. It was only a few minutes of work, but it got him another level.

The next day was more of the same. The town was uneasy. The undead were out there. They might arrive at any time. There was nothing left to do but prepare. But how? It would take months or years of work for Brin to get his [Glassbound Illusionist] powers to the point where he could fool people in a combat situation. He decided to spend all his time working on mirror image. If he could read the long page of the Language that Hogg had given him, even just one time, then he should be able to use [Memories in Glass] to reproduce that feat.

Actually, that was something he could test. He checked the memory in his ring for the time that Hogg had taught him how to create darkness. That had been a longish sentence, and he wasn’t sure if he could remember how to say it just right on his first time.

He looked into the memory, and had his real mouth repeat the words of the memory. “<<Sumo och Baum Ennem Ennua>>”

The spell worked perfectly the first time. Excellent.

He spent his day working on the page of Language that would make a mirror image. He found Hogg to help him when the old guy had time, and when he didn’t, he got Chamylla to help him. When both of them were too busy, he practiced it on his own until the headache became too much to manage. Then he practiced the lute with Davi the rest of the afternoon.

Brin chugged away at the paper. He got a paragraph down after two days.

A day after that, he’d completed half the first page.

He was glad he hadn’t dumped the rest of his points he’d planned for magic, yet. He would do it when he really needed to, but for now it was helping his training. The next day, he completed the first page.

One day bled into another, until a week had passed. For seven days, the undead continued to mass, out of sight. Hogg made occasional trips through the woods, but never found them. He figured that the scouts he killed along the way warned the main group in time for them to run away. He tried sneaking through the forest, but still never found the main body.

On the morning of the seventh day, Brin was practicing the page in the living room, sitting on a sofa while an increasing headache threatened to halt his progress, even though it was still early.

It was frustrating work. He didn’t get little bits of a mirror image if he failed. This casting was all or nothing. Hogg and Chamylla told him he was on the right track, but he had no way of knowing if that was true for himself, and he wouldn’t until he completed the entire thing. The only thing that let him keep going was the focus that [Directed Meditation] brought.

He read through the page again, front and back, and suddenly got a slew of notifications.

“For what?” Brin asked out loud, and heard an echo. He looked up to see… himself? From the back, hanging in the air as if he were lounging on an invisible sofa. He didn’t need [Know What’s Real] to tell him it was an illusion.

[Directed Meditation] dropped away, and he jumped up in the air. His mirror jumped with him.

He’d done it! He raised both hands in the air and cheered, and his illusion followed suit. What could he do with this?

He willed the illusion to stay still, and it did. He was able to walk around while the mirror image stayed perfectly in place. It looked for all the world as if a perfect copy of Brin was standing there in the living room. Anyone coming in would see two Brins.

Is that what he looked like? It was strange. It was different to see yourself in real space than it was looking in a mirror. Sort of uncanny. No wonder people were so freaked out by doppelgangers.

He said, “So that’s what I look like,” and his mirror repeated the words in his voice. His voice was weird. Is that what he really sounded like? Useful though.

He had so many scars! How long had he had that one on the back of his neck? He didn’t even remember getting that one.

The scars were good though. Basil’s little adventure had already given him a huge boost to [Scarred, but Healing]. He was already up another 20%, and he was pretty sure there was a little bit to go.

He tried making the illusion lift its hand, but couldn’t get it quite right. The hand sort of clipped right off his arm and hung in the air. He mentally willed it to follow him again, and the movements were much more natural. If he was going to use this, he’d have to hide and puppet his mirror images from a distance, at least for now.

He was thrilled. He’d done it! This was a high-leveled [Illusionist] Skill, and he’d replicated it with [Call Light] alone. Sure, he’d had the help of direct tutoring from two very high-leveled individuals, but it was still an accomplishment.

Now that he had this down, he could move on to something else. Maybe he could start working on sound? It depended on how much time he had.

He left to go find Hogg, and before he found him on the north-eastern gate, the calls were already going up. He was out of time; they all were.

The undead had returned.