The air felt just a little clearer now that the dead were finally laid to rest. For the first time in a long time, he wondered about what came after death. Before, it seemed like there were only three theories. An infinite darkness where your mind ceased to exist, some form of heaven created by a being higher than ourselves grants us paradise in eternity, or a burning pit where sinners were sent to suffer.

  Oh, and reincarnation. Probably others too. He thought.

  Whether he believed it or not, at least there were some clear options before. Now, with the System, anything is possible. Maybe there was another trial where Earth’s dead humans who died again fought an even scarier army of ghosts or demons.

  He hoped not.

  Wherever Amara, Christian, Nigel, and Amy were, he hoped they at least had peace.

  After patting down the loose soil, he tossed the shovel aside. Wiping the dirt and grime from his hands, he pulled out his water jug and took a long, cool sip. He’d have to ration whatever food and water he had left now that the Outpost was deactivated. Everyone had stocked up on the essentials once it became clear they had a real chance of losing, so he wasn’t worried about starving in the near future.

  Stepping inside the smithy, he got to work. First, he’d need a way to barricade the doors so he’d at least have some early warning if something tried sneaking up on him. Looking around, he only had a few bits and pieces of evolved metal left. He’d given most of his supply to Elena, but he had enough to not cheap out on the defenses.

  A few steel bars slipped through brackets in the doorframe should be enough to slow down anyone but Gary. I don’t have enough to cover the windows, but shattering glass should wake me up.

  Picking up a loose hand and a chunk of torso off the floor, he piled them into the crucible, lit the forge, and got to work.

  Waiting for his metal to melt was the perfect time to brainstorm, keeping his body occupied while his mind wandered. His body barely noticed the heat anymore, his skin baking just a little bit more every day. Staring into the flames with Artificer’s Eyes, he planned how to spend his last days in Veils End.

  There was a lot to do, and not much time to do it. The first order of business was getting more iron, but he’d like to test one of his new ideas while he was down there.

  A lightning grenade.

  After multiple sets of increasingly complex lightning burst arrays, he’d gotten quite comfortable with the runes. The ink was expensive, needing large amounts of F Grade Iron to pool together enough resonance, but luckily, he had an abundant source of materials just outside his back door. So far, he’d been powering them with harnessed kinetic energy, but there was nothing saying he couldn’t just use an essence crystal.

  What if he encased an essence crystal in an iron ball, covered the thing in lightning transformation and burst arrays, and used Modular Array to detonate it?

  It would be yet another weapon in his arsenal, one only he had the skill to use. Even better, his testing when forging Gary’s trap armor proved the lightning bursts were intense enough to crack a crystal, so he could easily turn the grenades into detonators for his first set of traps. All he’d have to do is bury piles of essence crystals just below the surface and blow them up the second the Undead get close.

  He’d need to do a lot of testing to fill in the gaps in his plan… the effective range of his aura, how many crystals a single grenade can explode, and a dozen other things, but that was ok. These tests were going to be fun.

  Other than lightning, he wasn’t quite sure what other traps he could set for the Undead. The only other inscription he’d tested was Kalthera poison, and something told him it wouldn’t be too effective against bone men and skeletal spiders. Maybe it would do something to those bats and wolves, but he was more concerned with the army itself. All he had to base his theories on were video games, but thinking that way hadn’t led him astray yet.

  That’s future Harvey’s problem. He chuckled, carefully adding carbon dust to his nearly melted iron. Carefully, he created his steel. While the fusing finished, he made molds for 4 thick, rectangular bars and simple brackets to nail into the wood. A single crucible was barely enough for the first bar, and it took him 10 minutes to find enough F Grade materials to fill it again.

  Who am I kidding? The wood’s going to give out before any G Grade iron will. I’ll make the rest out of the old stuff.

  He had piles of G Grade infused ore and almost a mountain of the crude stuff. Why waste what could become his precious steel on stupid bars and brackets? Maybe it was the allure of magic grenades or a lack of faith in the decaying wood of his smithy, but he eventually decided he was going to cheap out on his defenses.

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  Unwilling to be bothered cleaning up the raw ore, he retrieved a few chunks of infused G Grade iron and plopped them into the fire. Miraculously, he still had the self-control to finish the rest of the bars first. Since his pig iron wouldn’t need the same careful attention as his steel, he used the melting time to perfect his first grenade mold.

  Sitting at a workbench, essence began leaking out from his Artificer’s Toolbox sigil. Pale blue, formless putty that plopped onto the table in front of him. With a thought, a cone-shaped pedestal took shape, a cubic container forming around it. He’d need at least part of the crystal to be exposed for him to connect it to his ink directly, so the cone-shaped pedestal would create the gap where he’d inscribe the transformation arrays. Each rune would drink directly from the source, transmuting raw essence into lightning before sending it out through a trigger rune to a sister array somewhere on the outside of the ball. Depending on the size of the essence crystal, the grenade could be anywhere from as small as a racquetball to as big as a softball. The cave had options of every size and shape, so he’d have to experiment until he found the optimal ratio of crystal, steel, and ink. In the end, it would all come down to how much essence his ink could transform at a time.

  Carefully, he sculpted three molds, adding small, medium, and large essence crystals so he could create three grenades of similar size. Satisfied, the formless blue putty turned to stone.

  The following hours spent melting, pouring, tempering, and quenching his simple bars were agony, but he persevered. His last bracket finally poured, he gathered his last batch of F Grade Iron and set to work on his steel. Painstakingly, he added carbon dust until his skill revealed the perfect ratio inside the crucible. The molten steel sizzled as it splashed into the stone molds, filling each until a tiny pool of excess metal appeared in the intake.

  Why did I pick a profession where I have to wait for things to cool down? It’s like watching paint dry!

  For a while, he stared at the stone, but eventually he dragged himself away. He might as well get some G Grade infused iron melting. He had no idea if he’d ever need it, but the forge was burning anyway. He poured the iron into simple ingot casts whenever it was ready, and set to nailing his new brackets into the wall. The metal bars screeched as they slid into place over the front and back doors of the smithy. Gently, he grabbed the knob and tugged. The old wooden door thunked into the bars, stopping dead in its tracks. He could probably still yank it open if he needed to, but it was loud enough to wake him up if anybody tried.

  Perfect!

  The work wasn’t anywhere near enough for a level, but every System notification reignited his desire to push through the exhaustion. He could barely believe he was still awake. The sun was long gone, leaving darkness and uncertainty outside his window. That morning had begun with the tail end of an all-night desperate sprint to finish the last sets of plate armor before the quest ended. That afternoon had ended with the death of four friends at the hands of Gary’s brutal plan. His body begged for sleep, but he pushed forward anyway.

  Grenades need ink, and ink needs loads of blood and iron. At least finish one batch before bed so your bone marrow can get busy while you sleep.

  Returning to his molds, he finally cracked them open. The steel was still glowing, but cool enough for him to carefully file off the excess metal. They’d come out just as intended, a softball, baseball, and racquetball of steel with glowing blue crystals peeking out from the bottom of each. One by one, he quenched, reheated, and tempered until Perfect Finish left him with pristine steel grenades.

  Carrying each to a separate workbench covered in ink bottles, he dipped the steel tine he used as a brush into what was left of his lightning ink. His hands knew the patterns, and before long, the balls were covered in runes. The only hiccup was connecting the transformation arrays directly to the crystal. He tried painting a line of ink directly on the gem’s surface, but whatever governed the will inside it burned through every drop of ink it touched. Just as exhaustion threatened to become rage, he remembered a rune burned into his mind by John’s guide that he’d never actually used yet.

  “Idiot!” he shouted, slapping his own forehead. “You need an extraction rune, genius! Are you kidding me? You forgot step 1!”

  He’d always had a habit of talking to himself while working on projects. His favorite part about finally getting his own office back at the firm was that he didn’t have to worry about his coworkers staring at him when he started yelling at his code.

  Carefully inscribing the inscription runes, he completed the network of arrays. Fire coursed through his weave as radiance shone from within. A slew of System notifications confirmed what he already knew.

  A new creation has been made | Arc Charge | F Grade | Rare | Major Essence Gained

  You have created | Arc Charge | F Grade | Rare | Essence Gained X2

  Your profession, Runeforged Artificer, has reached Level 33. +8 Endurance, +10 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +12 Willpower, +8 Free Points

  “Bang!” he shouted. “That’s a grenade, baby!”

  Full of vigor, he rushed to the back door, yanked out the bars, and burst into the yard. Tossing the smallest grenade into the tunnel, he used Modular Array to activate the trigger rune.

  Suffocating darkness erupted with the flash of lightning as bolts arced between the metal rails and tunnel walls. Booming thunder echoed down the tunnel as Harvey giggled like a kid in a candy store. It took almost 10 seconds for the final bolt to dissipate, leaving the tiny ball sitting in the darkness once more. He could sense the inscription was still functional, just out of essence to power the arrays. Modular Array closed the trigger rune once more, and he waddled over to the Arc Charge and picked it up.

  Brushing off the dust, he saw an empty essence crystal for the first time. Resting quietly inside the steel cage, the formerly blue crystal had been drained to midnight black. He could feel it dragging in essence from the mountain, just like his own body did when it was recovering its spent stores. Tiny motes of light returned to the crystal, slowly filling it back up. It would take hours, but he couldn’t be happier with the result.

  They were reusable.