Lily didn't wake up that day or the next one. Welf sighed in annoyance, not showing a sign of worry. He hauled her to the Tanidia Inn—Eytjangard's only—as if he had done this before.
"You're not going to stay with her?"
Konrad wanted another quick pulse check, but got turned around.
"No point," he pushed him towards the corridor. "I've seen this more than enough. When she did it during the council, it was much more embarrassing. I got used to it."
Council? Well, as long as she was fine—
He left a crystal with her and locked the room, sliding the key underneath the door.
"Will she wake up?" the boy lingered.
"Yes, yes, but when, that's anyone's guess," Welf ushered him downstairs. "Two hours, two weeks; with my luck, it'll be the latter. Then I'll have to listen to her nonsense again."
Two weeks? By then, Vargas would've sent that letter—
If he couldn't sort out his mana issue by then—
"I don't wanna clear that dungeon alone," the blacksmith groaned. "Hey, do you—"
Zoltan ran into them on the main square before he finished.
"I'll buy all your low-grade crystals." And that could only mean one thing.
"Who did you scam now?" The boy turned the illusionist red without magic.
"Screw you, Konrad," he grumbled. "It's a legit business, paying half in advance."
The boy somehow doubted that.
"I've only these three left," the blacksmith sorted his baggage.
"That'll do," Zoltan yanked them away, leaving a coin in their place. "I'll pay a few silvers extra if you help out. And boy, you're coming, too."
That sounded suspicious, if anything, but Welf seemed relieved.
"Guess the dungeon can wait. What d'ya want me to do?"
They rushed to the Tower of Illusions—a name Konrad invented—before he answered.
"I sold a book," the scam-prentice rubbed his hands, "an expensive one."
"Then why—" That was when the smell hit him. Concentrated vinegar, even worse than usual.
It was easy to put the pieces together from there.
"You're not selling a book that you hadn't restored yet, right?" the boy demanded.
"I've already done a few pages, only need more ink." Zoltan held up his new crystals. "You and Welf start copying, while I prepare the next haul."
Well, at least he had a plan. But—
"I'm a blacksmith, not a scribe," the redhead noted. "I can't write."
Konrad could almost see the wheels turning in his 'master's' head.
"Y-you'll handle the ink, then," he barked next. His excitement freaked Konrad out, knowing the bastard all too well. "The first ten pages there, they'll come to pick it up by dusk."
It was already noon. That meant they had about six hours. Ten pages seemed doable, except—
"This is the one," Zoltan held up the foreword. "The 'Studies of the Dungeons of Southern Kasserlane,'" the title was even interesting. "A hundred and fifty pages, and I found them all."
Konrad always wanted to learn about dungeons since he ran into those Griphlets—
"One hundred and fifty?!" It took him a moment. "By dusk?!"
"Well, it's one of the shorter manuscripts," Zoltan shrugged. "And it was urgent for them. I couldn't say no to three hundred gold, even if we'll cut it close."
Three hundred?!
"Why didn't you start with that?" By some miracle, Konrad found motivation. That must've been one hell of a book. "We have a little copying to do."
He grabbed the foreword, preparing ink and parchment.
"Dungeons form where the laylines intersect or other mana concentrations occur."
His quill moved fast as he mumbled the text he copied.
"That's the spirit," the illusionist nodded. Welf had a lot to do, too. "Grind the crystals, then I'll mix the ingredients. You'll soak the pages for two hours, then pour acid in for ten minutes."
"If mana density reaches critical mass, crystals form," Konrad read the next line.
How many times in his past life had they given him impossible tasks like these? Do a job that would take a week for a team, but finish it by yesterday. Alone.
Now he was in his element.
"The crystal then fractures. Using the environment, it builds half-sentient guards, mimicking the nearby flora and fauna." He couldn't even comprehend what he was reading.
His hand moved by itself, etching perfect letters on the parchment.
Straight lines, no dripping ink, he hyper-focused on the job.
Was it impossible to finish on time? All the more reason to push the envelope.
"Where the dungeon spawns formed, a complex labyrinth remains in their wake." How long until his wrist would want to fall off? He could've killed for a keyboard.
"Wow, you write like a girl," Zoltan hovered over him, eyes wide.
"Do you think we have time for your insults?" he complained, scribbling the next line.
The illusionist laughed, taking a parchment for himself, too.
"The one time I praise you," his 'master' started writing, "you act like I offended you."
His lines were drunk, the letters hard to make out, and he even had to cross out a few words when he made a mistake. Konrad's letters seemed as if he printed them using an elegant font.
"Oh," he paused to roll his wrists. "Father Alastair would've killed me if I wrote like that."
"We'll never finish if you measure each letter, though," Zoltan countered.
He was in for a surprise when he noticed that the boy wrote faster than he did. They finished the ten pages way before the next batch was ready, and Konrad did six of them.
"If we had more time, I'd rather do it alone than have my work mixed with that sorry excuse of a handwriting." He tried to leash his perfectionist self in vain.
Welf laughed; his part was easy, it only smelled terrible.
"I've no idea what Lily likes in you, but you are exact opposites in almost everything."
Wait. Lily? Liked him? The thought scattered his focus.
It was lucky he ran out of pages to copy, because now they'd look like the mess Zoltan did.
"There's only one thing you share. You're both crazy obsessed." The blacksmith was ready to deliver a fresh batch of restored pages.
By the time dusk came along, Konrad could no longer feel his right arm.
He wore down a dozen quills and went through two pints of ink. The seventy pages he wrote were in a neat pile, waiting to dry, and Zoltan was to bind them into a proper codex.
His 'master' did only forty pages, then he could no longer move his fingers.
Their only luck was that charts and diagrams made up the rest. And while Welf couldn't read or write letters, he knew numbers and how to draw.
"I'll memorize everything. I won't note down a single word ever again," the boy groaned, listening to the distant hoofbeats. "You better give me half of that gold."
"You can have half of my part," Zoltan stretched out, "but most goes to the villagers."
"Of course, it does," he shook his head, looking out into the sunset. He spotted the peak of a flagpole in the distance. Then another. "Hold on, isn't that—"
Two horsemen carried the Duke of Aset's emblems.
The hoofbeats got louder. There were way too many for a merchant caravan or a book pickup.
More flags emerged, and the villagers scattered.
"You have to be kidding me."
With a huge dust cloud, a company of horsemen galloped into Eytjangard.