"First things first," he murmured to himself as he did a little stretching, loosening the muscles and getting ready to do what he did best.

Creating utter chaos…

Firstly, he went around the warehouse, taking stock of what he was working with before looking down at the list and trying to estimate how much time he had before somebody checked on him. The warehouse looked like a standard warehouse to Sam, though not as big as the ones in Deepanchor. It was still filled with shelves reaching the flat ceiling, stacked with boxes wherever he could see.

There were some barrels and other containers, but it was mainly boxes and more boxes filling the shelves. There was a small corner filled with tools to help with work, like gloves, ladders, and a few tools to help with opening boxes.

Based on the number of boxes, shelves, and the list, he had around three-ish hours before Brother Gunther checked on him. Sam never worked in a warehouse, but the other Sam worked many jobs throughout his life, including warehouse worker; it was this experience he had called upon.

The first task was to ascertain what was in the boxes.

He stepped closer to the nearest box – sadly, the list didn't have descriptions, just a number and nothing more – and began to scrutinize the enchantment on it.

A few minutes later, he grinned again. Apparently, while the Blood Brothers made sure that random nobodies couldn't sabotage their efforts, they were still not good enough to stop him.

'Or spend money to stop him…' he mused. 'It will probably last until somebody figures out that I mastered runes…'

Sometimes he really hated the arms race, but other times – usually when he was on top – he rather enjoyed it.

However, now was the time to do some…science!

Retrieving some rune carving tools, he squatted next to the box and began modifying the rune sequence on the box. He could have gone through it in seconds, but there was no reason to be so crude.

Instead, he simply carved in a few extra lines, modified a few others, and felt the magic sizzle out on the box. And anyone who would later investigate would find that it simply broke accidentally.

Reaching for the cover, he opened and looked in, his grin sliding off his face instantly.

"Man…why is it so boring?" he murmured in a dejected voice.

The crate he opened, to his consternation, was filled with red cloth. Digging deeper, he could only find more cloth. Sighing disappointingly, he went to another shelf to see if maybe those were more interesting.

After half an hour of effort, some mild runic B&A, and he was sitting in front of a crate filled with freaking curtains. Red, of course.

"Life is so unfair sometimes…" he lamented to himself as he got up from the floor and began ambling to one of the doors on the opposite side of the warehouse. At the door, it was a child's play to insert a small hole in the defensive measure, allowing him to simply pick the lock.

'Thank you, online tutorials….'

However, before he could leave, he had a thought. 'What if I can't come back?'

So, instead of opening the door, he headed back, replacing the covers on all the boxes and crates he had moved. Naturally, not before carving a very simple circle into the underside of said pieces of wood.

Looking around, with his hands on his hips, he nodded to himself, then, blending into the shadows, he shimmied out of the door, opening just enough to leave him space to move. Outside, he was met with a small alley between the warehouses, with the fading steps of the patrol getting farther and farther away.

Calculating the time needed for breaking through the defenses and picking a lock, he looked at the nearby warehouse and jumped into action.

The second warehouse held drums of liquids, everything from water to vinegar, with a few well-made boxes of wines hidden behind some carefully arranged crates. Those he pocketed, while the rest gained his runic circle.

The third and fourth were filled with construction material, half and almost empty, respectively, which were also left with several of his runic circles, before he moved on.

In the fifth and sixth, he found the remnants of an armory. Mostly leftover weapons and armor, with several workshops ready to work on said weapons. Scowling at his bad luck, Sam began carving runes instead of looting the building to the bedrock. Though he made sure to take several boxes of leftover whetstones and other armor and weapon repair tools.

"Waste not and all that…" he hummed to himself as he expertly carved, tongue stuck out, another circle in the underside of the desk where whatever craftsmen the Blood Army had worked.

He was about to finish the circle when he heard the squeak of the door. Scrambling up, he looked around before, with a running start, he jumped at the shelves, then, like a monkey, climbed up, before lying flat on the top of the shelves, making sure none of his body was visible from down below.

By the time he was situated, the door was fully open, and he could actually understand the words.

"Why the hell were we sent to get those things? We have the bloody NPCs for that kind of work…" the first person, a player, complained loudly as he trampled into the room.

"Maybe because you keep pissing off the boss?" came the other, more sedate, answer.

"Well, maybe if he could give better commands, then I wouldn't be complaining so much!" came the retort. Sam peeked over the edge of the shelving unit and saw two players in armor, colored red, accented with blue, looking around the warehouse. "Now what did the idiot want?"

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"The rest of the whetstones… Those fucking monsters are a murder on our weapons!"

The first one snorted. "Fucking cheapskates. As if they couldn't afford to give us good weapons. I heard that fucking Solar just showers the guild in enchanted weapons…"

"Yes, well, Solar is Solar. Our boss has to answer to his boss, who has another boss, and so on. You know how these things work… Everybody takes just a little, and we little guys are left with cleaning up the shit."

The two of them spread out and began to rummage through the room.

"Remind me why we signed that fucking contract?"

"Because, and I quote: it was fucking good money."

"I must have been drunk…"

"When are you not…"

The conversation between the two of them devolved into insulting each other for a few minutes as they looked for the whetstones Sam liberated. Luckily, they really didn't care about finding it. After around five minutes, they shrugged and declared that the last team must have taken them, then left the warehouse with the door open and a giant mess in the middle.

'Mhmmm, monsters hard on normal or weakly enchanted weapons?' he mused as he stealthed out of the warehouse, heading for the last one.

The seventh one was filled with food, mostly low-quality rations, but he found a few crates of pantry essentials and several drums of oil.

"Oh no…it fell oveeeeer…." He said in a sing-song voice as he carefully lowered one of the barrels of oil to the ground, watching as the liquid began gushing out and covering the ground. He finished the maneuver by engraving the last circle, bigger and more complex than the other ones, into the bottom of the oil drum.

When finished, he left the warehouse and returned to the first warehouse, where he sat on one of the crates.

'Now, the question is, how to get to the portal…' he thought.

Sam could smash through the defenses as there were no strong mages present. The Blood Army thought that he wouldn't be able to reach the portal so far behind the front lines. Looking down once again at the artifact he was given, he grumbles to himself about the injustice of not being able to keep it before a slow but insidious grin fills his face.

"Illusions are fun, aren't they?" he spoke out loud as the idea percolated around his mind before arriving at a destination, he couldn't help but laugh at. "But where do I get a giant platypus this time a day?"

Chuckling to himself, he called out gently. "Lucky!"

The wolf emerged from his shadow with a quiet bark, looking and smelling around curiously before his gentle eyes landed on Sam, and his tail began to wag, ready for his orders. Sam spent a few minutes just petting the giant wolf before standing up and retrieving a roll of leather from one of the boxes.

Using the tools in his inventory, he cut it down to size, then began to add several sequences to it while Lucky went around the warehouse sniffing at everything.

Another fifteen minutes, and he was ready.

"Lucky, come here!" he called out in a low voice. The wolf trotted over and plopped down in front of him. He took the prepared slice of leather and put it around his throat in a facsimile of a dog collar. Lucky looked offended at the piece of clothing, but he let Sam affix it.

Sam patted the wolf before whispering to him. "Don't worry, it will only be for a few minutes." Lucky huffed in response but stopped squirming.

Standing back up, he shook his hands before reaching out with his magic toward the ad-hoc collar and activating the magic he carved upon it.

Instantly, a shimmering shell of magic covered Lucky, who had frozen in fright. The shell began to bulge and transform until, in the place of his loyal wolf, a giant – and very confused – a platypus stood.

Breaking out of his confusion, Lucky looked around, the platypus moving its head in synchrony with him.

Stepping back, Sam looked at what he wrought and nodded. It was indeed good.

"I wonder what they will make of this…" he giggled to himself, before getting on his knees and explaining the plan to Lucky.

Sam hid behind a crate and watched as another patrol went by. He could see the fortification hiding the portal, and was waiting for Brother Gunther to finish locking up his little shack to go and check on Sam.

The man whistled and began to walk toward the warehouse, which Sam used to rush toward the shack and, with a small application of his shadow mana, destroyed the lock.

Entering the room, he cared for nothing but files and documents. Spotting several cabinets filled with files made of wood, he simply stepped toward them and took the drawers out one by one before depositing them into his inventory. It took him almost two minutes, but in the end, he threw a wooden board with a circle into the middle of the room, another where the cabinets were, and rushed out of the room, jumping on the roof of the shack.

Brother Gunther, with his girth, was just reaching his preferred warehouse door.

He took a deep breath, then spoke out loud.

"Lucky, it's go time."

For a moment, nothing happened, then the entire camp descended into chaos.

"Where the hell are you, you pansy bastard?" came from behind as Brother Gunther opened the door.

At the same time, a scream rent the air as a giant, extremely fast and durable platypus began barreling toward the fortification.

Most of the screams were more confused than scared, but Sam could already see several players reacting. Most of the NPCs were gaping at the happenings, not knowing how this could have happened.

He watched as several arrows, spells, and whatnot – including a plush bunny – were launched at his familiar. Grinning, he reached out with his magic at the runic circles he carved and flicked a metaphorical switch.

Then activated all his speed-increasing magic and shot off toward the hole in the wall, aiming directly at the portal.

"Ten…"

"Nince…"

As the first spells reached Lucky, the platypus' hide looked as if nothing had harmed him, yet Sam knew Lucky tanked those attacks, and the players around the courtyard began to yell at each other.

"Stop it!"

"It's going for the portal?"

"Who the fuck did this?"

"Why is a fucking platypus here?"

"KILL IT!"

The chaos allowed Sam to slip into the construction site, with one glance back at the pandemonium he had caused, his eyes coincidentally meeting the eyes of the king's daughter, who had rushed out of the kitchen, hands still bubbly from washing the dishes, staring with disbelief at the site before her.

Sending him a quick wink, he rushed toward the portal, ignoring the guards, players surrounding, just as his internal countdown reached its end.

"Banzai!" he exclaimed, drawing several surprised eyes to him as his fingers reached for the portal.

At the same time, a cataclysmic explosion rent the sending everybody to the ground, while filling the air with even more explosion sounds. By the time the first player managed to figure out what happened, his finger touched the swirling red energy, and he was whisked away into another dimension.

He landed, somewhat roughly, in a roll, which caused him to roll into a stone wall.

"Ufff…" he groaned as he lay on the ground. "You good, Lucky?"

The shadow shimmered next to him, before the bedraggled head of his familiar emerged and gave him a quick lick, before returning to rest. Chuckling slightly, he opened the system notifications and began to read.

[Fracture: Blood Maze]

[A maze saturated with the victims of a massacre, cursed to be endlessly changing, never knowing rest.]

[Time Limit: None]

[Charges: Unlimited]

"Friendly, eh?" he groaned before standing up, dusting off his armor, and looking around.

Sam found himself on a dirt road, lined on both sides with low stone walls, somewhat crumbling but still in recognizable shape. In the distance, at the end of the road, stood a hedge maze, made out of brilliant red hedges, that oozed darkness and murder.

"Welp, once more into the fray…" he said to himself before starting to walk. "I hate jump scares…"

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