The air stank of ozone, hot metal, and alchemical solvents—an acrid cocktail that clung to the back of my throat but was strangely comforting. The Soul Forge was alive in a way few places were, humming with the rhythm of creation instead of consumerism, and I felt like I was in my element here. Heat shimmered in the air, rolling off the central forge in waves, tinting everything in a hazy orange glow.

  Cables, pipes, and mana conduits snaked across the walls, runes overhead bathing the whole space in an eerie light.

  Ten workers crowded the floor, some hunched over Runescribed Fabrication Tables—heavy wooden workstations banded with strips of reinforced iron, their surfaces etched with strange geometric sigils that pulsed faintly with power. Others worked at crystalline Artifact Stations; delicate structures of opaque quartz and brass as the Soul Smiths imbued progenerated items with Material Significance.

  Sparks leapt and danced as a pair of smiths worked the forge itself, hammering at glowing steel, forging metal into red hot blades or slabs of armor that we could resell at a premium. The air buzzed with raw energy—each strike, each flare of light, each pulse of mana serving as the heartbeat of my new manufacturing machine.

  I moved through the rows of tables, greeted by smiles and occasional waves, before eventually nodding to Sven, the new Soul Forge foreman who oversaw the others with crossed arms and a perpetual scowl. He wore a smudged leather apron covered in soot and grease as he barked orders to the crew with the authority of a man who knew his business and knew it well.

  “Jorge, keep those sigil pattern tight and your lines clean!” he shouted over the roar of hammer falls. He spoke with a Ukrainian accent as thick as his beard. “Remember, haste makes waste—and every mistakes up comes out of your cut.”

  Sven was a 49ner who’d spent the better part of a decade laboring away in this very forge as a slave under Nikoli’s cruel dictatorship. But those days were in the past and despite his initial protests, he and several of the other 49ners had begrudgingly come onboard to work as Soul Smiths.

  It hadn’t taken nearly as much convincing and arm twisting as I’d initially expected.

  Even though the former slaves hated Nikoli and wouldn’t bother to piss on his burning corpse, a surprising number of them genuinely loved the work. More importantly, they were good at it. Crafting Relics and Artifacts was delicate, time-intensive, and riddled with opportunities for things to go catastrophically sideways. Most of them already had years of hard-earned experience, and Nikoli had equipped many of them with crafting-specific Relics that made the work go a hell of a lot smoother.

  They all had Echo Imprint—a Uncommon-grade version of my own Glyph Array that let the user duplicate a working Relic’s “Sigil Pattern” and transfer it into a handful of Relic Shards with minimal fuss. Most also had Sigil Salvager, which allowed them to strip active Sigils from Artifacts without destroying the item in the process.

  Usually.

  Sometimes.

  Okay, maybe it was a coin toss. But still better than the alternative, which was certain and irrevocable destruction.

  Reality Solder let them conjure a temporal dilation field around a project, preventing catastrophic instability and boosting production speed by fifty percent. And then there was Meth Lab Alchemy, a dangerously on-brand Relic that converted trash-tier reagents into mid-tier substitutes. The resulting elixirs tended to make you feel like bugs were tunneling under your skin and they were extremely addictive, but we sold ’em cheap—and in a life-threatening situation, a shitty potion was better than no potion at all.

  And we needed more potions.

  All it had taken to convince them to come work at the Forge was reasonable hours, a handful of employee perks—staff lodging for some, free food for others, fast passes for the laundromat—and an assload of money. Other than Ajax, the Soul Smiths were my highest paid employees, though they were worth every penny.

  “Dan,” Sven said. “How goes things with the store?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied, thinking back to Clive.

  “That bad?” He chuckled darkly. “Not surprising. I don’t envy you. I was never much of a people person myself. Forging’s hard work, but it’s simple. Straightforward. The Relics don’t give you lip.” A crooked smile crept across his soot-streaked face. “And things with the Syndicate?”

  “Worse than things with the store,” I replied. “That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about. I’m hoping you guys have some solutions to our pest problem.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said, nodding. “Dale and I have been working on it almost non-stop. I think you will be pleased with the results.”

  He motioned for me to follow as he weaved through the forge, double checking the other’s work in passing. “Less mana,” he barked at a woman with thick dreadlocks held back in a ponytail, “more pressure,” he corrected another. “Steel is not a delicate flower,” he growled at a third, “don’t be afraid to hit it.”

  The others rushed to comply.

  We left the main workshop behind and stepped into the newer section of the forge I’d added specifically for warehousing purposes. Heavy duty shelves lined the floor in neat rows, all loaded with crafted items, designed for resale. There were heaping stacks of Relics and Artifacts, entire shelves dedicated to off-brand elixirs of questionable use, and trays of Sigil Stone inserts humming faintly with different magical effects.

  Sven led me past all of those and to a cordoned-off area marked Syndicate War – Not for Sale.

  There, hunched over something that looked like a cross between a medieval mace and a stun baton, was Dale—Sven’s partner in war crimes. The two made an odd pair. Sven was a lanky, dower man with whipcord muscle, a long beard, and scars covering every inch of his exposed skin. Despite our best efforts to heal him, he still bore the marks of his time with Nikoli like war medals pinned on by a cruel god.

  Dale, on the other hand, looked like he’d crawled straight out of a Bass Pro Shop.

  Short, round, denim overalls, and a sweat-stained trucker cap that read It Get’s Worse Before It Get’s Worse. Dale was a good ol’ boy from Mississippi who’d No-clipped in 2009 after getting drunk at an Ole Miss game. He was good people—the kind of guy you could get drunk with while shooting off illegal fireworks—and although he wasn’t one of Nikoli’s original thralls, he sure as shit knew his way around a toolbox and a Fabrication Table.

  “Heya, Dan!” Dale said with a toothy grin. “What’s happenin’, cappin’?”

  “You know how it is,” I replied. “Another day, another vampire dead. Though I wish it were more than one. Theo pulled a fast one on us—nearly killed us all.”

  Dale let out a disgruntled sigh and shook his head. “Yeah, they’re a tricky bunch of bastards.”

  “Got anything new that might help?” I asked hopefully.

  “Hells yeah, brother,” Dale said slapping his thigh.

  “Though it’s hard to say how effective they’ll be,” Sven added, stomping on my high hopes. “Getting reliable info about vampiric weaknesses has proven tougher than we expected, but we are doing what we can.”

  “How’d the UV lights work?” Dale asked. “Fry ’em or fizzle?”

  “Only so-so,” I admitted. “They kept the fledgling vampires away, but they didn’t do much against Theo or his little disco entourage.”

  “Probably a wattage issue,” Dale said, absently scratching at his nose with a greasy finger. “Back before he croaked of a heart attack, my daddy liked to cook shine in this old boiler we had back behind the chicken coop. He always used to tell me the dose makes the poison. I’m betting it’s the same thing with the UV lights.”

  “Sorry about you dad,” I said.

  Dale sniffed and shrugged. “Don’t be. He was a mean old bastard, my daddy. Besides, in the end he died the way he liked to live—drinking corn mash and eating entirely too much deep-fried catfish. He went out like a real American hero. It’s almost enough to bring a tear to my eye.”

  “The power difference between fledging vampires and mature vampires is interesting,” Sven said ignoring Dale, his brow furrowing in thought. He glanced up at me, eyes narrowing. “That might confirm something we’ve long suspected—that there are different classifications of vampires. Wulfgar’s scouts assumed as much, but we weren’t certain.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “What do you mean different classifications?” I asked.

  Sven seesawed his head back and forth.

  “Nothing you should take as gospel,” he said. “Just suspicions, you understand. Wulfgar has long thought that the vampires have a sort of pecking order. A hierarchy. At the top is their Queen, Cree the Tooth Fairy—”

  “I still wonder why they call her that,” Dale interrupted. “Seems like a weird name for a vampire queen. Lady Shadow. The Bloodmother. Queen Hemoglitter. I can think of about a dozen names that sound scarier than the Tooth Fairy.”

  “I’m sure there’s a reason,” Sven interrupted, “and I’m sure none of us want to find out what it is. What we do know is that she is powerful. She serves as the Lord of Coin’s right hand. His enforcer. Below her are the high lords and ladies, followed by the members of the outer coven. Then you have the fresh recruits below them—the fledglings—and the thralls and ghouls, lower still. Though the ghouls aren’t true vampires at all,” he added.

  “That much, I can confirm,” I replied.

  “Problem is,” Dale said, “no one outside the Syndicate seems to know how exactly the hierarchy works. Wulfgar thinks that rank is determined by the bite itself.”

  I frowned. “Sorry, but I don’t follow. Can you break it down for me Barney-style?”

  “Barney-style?” Sven asked, cocking an eyebrow in confusion.

  “Big purple dinosaur who teaches stuff to kids,” Dale said by way of explanation.

  Sven looked more confused than before.

  “Don’t worry, it’s a cultural thing,” I replied. “Just talk real slow and use small words.”

  “Ah, as though explaining to a small child,” Sven said slowly.

  “Exactly.” I grinned. “Just imagine I’m a five-year-old, and you’ll be okay.”

  Sven shrugged. “Well, in simple terms,” he said, “Wulfgar thinks that if a pledge is turned by a powerful vampire, they will be reborn more powerful in turn. Only the Queen can make lords and ladies, while lords and ladies can make vampire fledglings and thralls. Fledglings aren’t capable of infecting anyone at all, but can use blood magic to produce both human thralls and ghouls.”

  “Interesting,” I replied. “And what’s the other school of thought?”

  “That it has to do with leveling,” Dale said. “That’s where Wraith falls in his thinking. He believes all vampires start out as fledglings, then earn power as they gain experience and eventually evolve and unlock some sort of vampire interface. Kinda like the VIRUS System, but for bloodsuckers.”

  “What about you, Sven?” I asked. “You’ve been around a while. What do you think?”

  Sven’s face twisted in disgust.

  “I don’t think it matters,” he replied. “The only thing that matters is killing them all.”

  “Amen, brother,” Dale said clapping Sven on the shoulder. “Now you’re talking my love language. Overwhelming violence.”

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you guys,” I said.

  “To that end,” Sven continued, “we’ve been working to fabricate some weapons that might prove useful. Dale, show him the Stake Thrower 3,000.”

  Dale set the mace down and pulled an enormous steel crossbow from the shelf with an oversized submachine gun drum jutting from the bottom.

  “Why is it called the Stake Thrower 3000?” I asked.

  Sven looked at me like the answer should’ve been self-explanatory. “It is a rune-powered, automatic crossbow that hurls custom built stakes. Seems very obvious.”

  “Yeah, but why 3,000?”

  “That was Dale’s addition,” Sven muttered. “He insisted that it should have numbers on the end for ‘cool’ factor.”

  “3,000 makes it sound way more badass and futuristic, you know?” Dale said happily. “Like something out of a Heinlein novel.”

  I couldn’t disagree. It did sound cooler, though the weapon didn’t look even remotely futuristic. Just the opposite—like something a witch hunter during the Inquisition would haul around between stoning innocent women.

  “Didn’t realize you were a Heinlein fan,” I said.

  Dale grinned and his gaze took on a hazy, faraway look. “You bet your ass I am. I read the Moon is a Harsh Mistress when I was fourteen. Then Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Princess of Mars. I burned through all the greats after that. Clark, Asimov, Bradbury. Just cool dudes, doing cool shit against impossible odds. You know,” he said, “the Stake Thrower 3000 was partially inspired by the Needle Gun from The Stars My Destination. That and the 2004 masterpiece Van Helsing, staring Hugh Jackmen—one of his best roles ever.”

  “Holy shit, I was just telling Croc about Van Helsing,” I said. “It had everything. Frankenstein, werewolves, weird flying baby goblins.”

  “And don’t forget that opening scene with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide,” Dale added. “Only one of the best fight scenes in cinematic history.”

  Once again, Sven looked completely lost in the sauce. He was European and the Hugh Jackman version of Van Helsing had come along well-after he’d No-clipped.

  “I do not know about this Hugh Jackman or this Needle Gun,” Sven said, “but both are inferior to the Stake Thrower 3000. These,” he said, pulling out a slim bolt, “serve as the ammunition. Each shaft is molded from silver, but the tip itself is hawthorn, which is supposed to be extra deadly to vampires—at least according to European folk lore.”

  “Where in the hell did you find hawthorn?” I asked in genuine surprise.

  Sven gave me a grim smile. “10,000 Acre Wood. There are a great many trees and the little stuffed bear showed me where to find them.”

  “I still can’t believe that Winnie the freaking Pooh is real,” Dale said, shaking his head. “Seeing that little bear toddle around that tea shop of his blows my mind every dang time.”

  “Shhhh,” Sven scolded, “you are interpreting with your prattle. Now, back to the bolt.” He tapped at a glass bead embedded in the silver shaft. “See there? Each one is filled with a dash of molten sunfire brew.” He grinned, showing off a few missing teeth—another testament to his time spent with Nikoli. “It explodes inside them.”

  Okay, that was pretty badass.

  “I also made this,” Dale said, replacing the crossbow for a supped-up chainsaw that looked like the embodiment of every redneck’s wet dream. “I call it The Chainsaw of FAFO. The chassis is a STIHL MS 881—the kind the forest service uses for clear cutting. Rare-grade Artifact, 121.6 cc engine, 6.4 kilowatts, and 8.7 horsepower.”

  I whistled, thoroughly impressed. “Damn, that’s a lot of kick.”

  “Yeah, buddy,” Dale beamed. “You could power a god-dang Go Kart with the kinda juice this thing’s working with. I tried to make the saw teeth out of pure silver, but they were too soft. So instead, me and Sven cooked up a silver tungsten alloy.”

  “Sven and I,” Sven corrected.

  “Me and Sven, Sven and I—tomato, tomauto,” Dale replied before flipping a switch on the behemoth chainsaw. The blade roared to life, blue-white arcs of electricity spitting from the teeth as it revved.

  “The silver tungsten alloy is surprisingly conductive,” Sven explained, “so we also added a Sigil Stone that imbues it with electrical current. Now it will electrocute enemies while carving them to pieces. Very good, yes?”

  “I feel like my birthday came early,” I said, already itching to replace Synthia’s current chainsaw with this newly upgraded version.

  Sven and Dale also had three additional proto-types as well, including UV Claymores, a beefy revolver—based on Nikoli’s saw blade gun—that fired a near infinite supply of encapsulated liquid sunfire rounds, and something called the Church Bell of Boom. Ringing the rune-etched bell activated a subsonic sound that disoriented vampires, by wreaking havoc on their echolocation.

  “It should work,” Sven said, reverently caressing the hand bell. “But we haven’t been able to test it yet. Finding subjects is a tricky business…”

  I brightened. “I’ve got a gift for you that might help.” I opened my spatial storage and deposited the vampire corpse in a heap of blood and goo on the ground.

  Dale visibly recoiled at the smell. “Whoo-ee, that thing stinks to high heaven.” He crinkled his nose. “Once I found a dead raccoon stuck inside the back end of a tractor engine block. That thing smells a whole heck of a lot worse.”

  “Croc recovered the body after our negotiations with Theo,” I said, crouching down to loot the fledgling vampire of Relics, depositing all of them into Spatial Storage for later.

  “Must’ve been some negotiation,” Sven grumbled, eyeing the body with keen interest. “Not as good as a living specimen, but it should help. Thank you.”

  “Da nada,” I said. “And I should be the one thanking you two. You’re doing the hard part. I’m just killing vampires.” I picked up the chainsaw, which had some real weight to it, and triggered the blade, grinning as it purred beneath my hands. “Speaking of killing vamps, unless either of you have an objection, I’m gonna take this out for a field test.”

  “Naw, that’s fine,” Dale replied with a shrug, “we’ve got the blueprints for it and we can make more.”

  “It will take time, though,” Sven cautioned. “But now that we have a specimen to experiment on, I’m sure we can come up with more potent varieties.”

  “And I’ll get to work on upgrading the UV lights,” Dale added.

  “We’ll also need something to combat darkness,” I said as the battle with Theo replayed in my head. “One of them had a Relic that summoned this Disco Ball that absorbed light. Jakob’s ghost light elixirs still worked, but nothing else would.”

  Dale frowned. “Well, the easy answer is NVGs,” he said immediately. “You can usually earn ’em at the Loot Arcade for a Silver Delver Loot Token, but I’ve seen a bunch listed in the auction house, too.”

  “That’ll do in a pinch,” I said, “but I’ve used NVGs before and they’re clunky as hell. I’m hoping for something a little more high-speed low-drag. I’m sure there’s a Relic out there that grants night vision, and if we could distil those down into Sigil Stones, then we could equip ’em to other Artifacts.”

  “There, uh, could be a wee-little problem with that,” Dale said, wincing.

  “What do you mean? What problem?” I asked, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of my stomach.

  “Do you want me to tell him or are you gonna do it?” Dale replied, shooting a worried look at Sven.

  “I’ll do it,” Sven said, squaring his shoulders like a man preparing for a firing squad. “The problem is that we are almost out of blank Sigil Stones.” He reached into the outer pocket on his leather apron and removed a white stone, about the size of his palm. “We have maybe twenty left in the whole forge. And the bigger problem is that we don’t know where Nikoli sourced them from.”

  “What about the auction house?” I asked.

  Dale frowned and shook his head. “Yeah, we already thought of that. You can get ’em there, but the Syndicate controls most of the stock, and even buying wholesale would put us out of business, quick, fast, and in a hurry. The blank stones are going for more than we typically charge for enchanted Artifacts. Those things carry one hell of a premium. If we’re gonna stay in business, we’ll need to find a new supplier.”

  “Nikoli must’ve had a connection down on the 49th floor,” Sven said, “but he never told us about who it was.”

  “Well, shit,” I replied. That was another headache that I really didn’t need—not with everything else going on. “Leave it to Nikoli to dick us over, even from beyond the grave. My dad taught me to never speak ill of the dead, but he never met that guy.”

  “Sorry we can’t help out more,” Dale replied apologetically.

  “This isn’t on you guys,” I replied. “It was bound to come up eventually. Just use the rest of the Sigil Stones we do have for some new prototypes. I’ll go track down Wulfgar and see if I can’t find anything else out about Nikoli’s supplier. In the meantime, have half the Soul Smiths switch to elixir manufacturing and the other half pivot to minting Croc Coins. I aim to flood the market with both, so we’re gonna need to seriously upgrade production.”

  Dale nodded. “Copy that, big dog. We’ll keep the hammers hot and the Bunsen burners on full blast. If the Syndicate wants a war, we’ll give ‘em one they’ll never forget.”

  The smell of molten steel clung to me as I left the forge, the rhythmic pounding of hammers fading behind me. My head throbbed in time with the beat. Too many fires, not enough hours in the day to put ’em all out. Vampires, markets, trade wars, grumpy customers, supply shortages—it was all stacking up, and if I didn’t get ahead of it soon, the Syndicate would bury me.