"Coffee?" Elria asked.

She was at the corner of the newly installed workbench. Well, less installed, and more 'placed.' The main workstation was a smooth wooden surface; various compartments extended from the sides with multiple tools.

A block of ice no larger than Enya's hand sat to the side, a decapitated rabbit skull resting on top. The ice glowed with a ghostly blue-white hue, while the skull's inner soul-flames flickered cold and dim.

"It says it's like coffee," Enya replied.

Grimmy hovered to the side, pages open to her latest recipe.

Etherbloom Mix (Gold Tier)

Description: A drink formed by the combination of an Etherbloom lily, and the chilling touch of condensed soul-ice. Boosts energy and stamina, equal to one hundred cups of coffee, along with providing increased mana regeneration. Consumer will undergo a severe crash after the effect wears off.

Materials Required:

Etherbloom Lily (One petal per cup)

Frozen and condensed Soul-Energy. (One cube per cup)

Chilled Soul-flames

It was a simpler recipe she could try creating after leaving the soul-prison. Pell had gathered plenty of Etherbloom lilies, and according to Grimmy, condensed soul-energy could be formed by infusing ordinary ice with concentrated soul-energy.

Thanks to Javey's help, a fellow mage of the guild had frozen a batch of water and sent her a block large enough to experiment on. She'd already replenished most of her soul-energy by backtracking through the soul-prison and culling the weaker wraiths as they left.

The third part of the recipe were the chilled soul-flames. The only soul-flames that Enya knew of were the ones inside her minions' skulls. Pell had purple ones; her minions had blue.

Apparently, there was a way to create chilled soul-flames with trinkets. One such thing was the Gravecaller's band she made in Talo. Perhaps she'd remake it, and some extra, all to sell. For now, she didn't have the materials, so she created the flames manually.

Next to her, lay the deceased body of the skeletal rabbit.

By taking the rabbit's skull and placing it atop the block of soul-ice and waiting a few minutes, she obtained two blue wisps of chilled soul-flames.

"I don't know about drinking coffee made from dead rabbit tears. But what you don't know can't hurt you, I guess." Elria commented.

Enya put down a cup that Javey had given to her.

She began working.

Skill: Transfiguration of Soul [Passive] Harness soul-energy as a power source to forge, mold, or refine materials. You can also use soul-energy to help assist in the bending, shaping, or restructuring of materials with enhanced precision. [Soul-Energy Cost: Variable]

By expending a minimal amount of soul-energy, Enya created some ghostly tendrils of soul-energy. Their ends almost resembled hands, aiding her. One arm latched onto the ice, cracking off a triangular shard; the other dipped toward the rabbit skull, gently scooping up a floating wisp of chilled flame.

With her human hands, Enya reached for the mortar and pestle in the nearest drawer. She tore a petal from an Etherbloom Lily, added a few drops of water, and began to grind. The petal bled faint light under the stone, releasing a scent somewhere between cold metal and sugar.

"How long are you supposed to grind that for?" Elria asked.

"Dunno," Enya replied.

She continued to grind for several seconds.

"Hey, Elria," she said without looking up.

"Hm?"

"Were you lying?"

Elria tilted her head, the crystalline joints in her neck clicking faintly. "About what?"

"About the voodoo doll," Enya said. "The one you gave Pell. You said he could destroy you with it if you betrayed us again."

Elria went quiet. The only sound was the soft rhythm of the pestle. She tapped one spider leg against the workbench—click, click, click—thinking.

"Hmm. Yes and no," she said finally. "It certainly does what it should. But, in truth, it only affects my physical body. As long as I'm still a ghost or living inside another form, I'm unaffected by it."

Enya looked up, frowning faintly. "So you lied."

Elria gave a slow shrug, mandibles flexing in what passed for a smile. "Partly. If the doll were destroyed and I had my body back, that body would be obliterated instantly. But there are ways to dispel the curse—difficult ones, though. Not worth the effort unless I had to."

Enya kept grinding. The glow from the crushed petal spread across her fingertips. Not crushed enough yet. "Are you going to betray us again?"

Elria's eyes glimmered with reflected light. "Do you want the truth?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe," Elria said simply. "Depends. I don't have anything against you two. You're actually… tolerable. Fun, even. And you still owe me a new body, remember? That was the deal. I act as your little spider bodyguard, maybe teach you a few things about witchcraft, and you make me a new body. Maybe something stylish this time—a vampire's body, perhaps. That'd be nice."

Enya pressed harder on the pestle, the golden dust pooling into a faint swirl. "But you'd only do it if you had to?"

Elria nodded. "Only if absolutely necessary. If I'm about to die or the situation turns desperate. So long as that doesn't happen, you and that skeleton are safe. Though, I really doubt any situation would turn that dire for me. Even if this spiderling body is destroyed, I'll still have my soulform. Also, most people despise witches, so it'll be hard to get someone who can make bodies craft me something. A regular blacksmith ain't going to be doing that."

Enya's brow furrowed. "You're not very nice."

Elria chuckled softly, the sound like glass tapping glass. "Necromancers aren't nice either. Neither of us are. To the rest of the world, we're both despicable."

Enya didn't argue. The grinding sound filled the space again, rhythmic and calm, as if her silence meant agreement.

After about a minute of grinding the petal, she stopped. She took the pieces and scooped it down into the cup. With her floating transfiguration of soul arms, she dropped one small chunk of ice into the cup. With the other, she lightly set the chilled soul flame on top of the ice. Slowly, the flames melted the soul-ice beneath it—even though the flames were no longer hot.

Stolen novel; please report.

Over the course of a minute, the ice melted and the crushed etherbloom mixed with it. The soul flames also dispersed, getting absorbed into the mixture.

What she had now, was a cup of blueish, white liquid that lightly glowed, pulsating with light.

System Notification: You have successfully crafted Etherbloom Mix: You have received 1689 EXP. Experience Remaining Until Next Level: 6390/9814

Item Name: Etherbloom Mix Tier: Gold Rank: D- Effect: Boosts energy and stamina, equal to one hundred cups of coffee, along with providing increased mana regeneration. A severe stamina crash will occur after the effect wears off.

"D minus…" Enya muttered.

Again, her crafting rank wasn't as high as she wanted it to be. D- was near bottom tier for gold. Almost every item she'd crafted so far had been lower tier and rank. At least this one was of the correct tier from the book. The rank still left much to be desired.

"Why is it just D-? Is that the max or can it go up to A+?" Enya asked aloud.

The Grim Pullet's pages turned, with additional text from Grimmy written on the new pages.

<Grimmy> The tier listed in the recipe is the average of what is crafted. Ranks can be anywhere from F to A. For this particular recipe, the grounded petals were not fine enough, some of its effects were not able to fully dissolve into the icy mixture. Along with that, the soul-ice was created manually and the soul-energy used was not spread evenly, nor was the ice completely pure. The ratio of ice to soul-flame was also off by 27%.

"Oh…"

She didn't like that. Crafting really wasn't that easy? She had to get it perfect? She thought Pell was just joking when he told her that blacksmiths had to be mindful of things like temperature, material quality, and all that extra complicated stuff. Turns out, she had to be mindful of the same thing?

"Well… I still have a few more petals. I guess I can make a few more and try to make a good one. Then I can get started on the skeleton goliath," she said.

Although Pell couldn't directly purchase normal blood from the marketplace, the crafter's guild here did have a source of it. Monster blood leftover from adventurer kills. Javey was currently on a mission to get her 500 liters of it. Though, she was a bit worried about him. His face drained of color and turned white when she asked for 500 liters of blood.

She wasn't sure why.

Burp.

Enya turned away from Grimmy and looked over.

The cup of Etherbloom mix was empty.

Beside it, was Elria, wiping her mandibles with her spider legs; a hint of blue fluid dripped onto the workbench.

"Not bad. It's kind of refreshing."

Enya frowned. "That's going to cost you 5 million gold."

Elria hissed. "Over my dead body it will. I'll vomit it out right now if you're charging that much."

Pell opened his status screen.

Pell's Party: [Pell] Health: 100/100 [Enya] Health: 100/100

Seems like she's doing fine.

He closed the screen with a mental click and accepted the payment in front of him.

A finely dressed man gave a polite bow. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Meltere."

"Likewise," Pell said, tossing the bag into his inventory before heading out of the merchant's guild.

He adjusted the cloak around his shoulders, tugging the hood lower. The fabric was new, bought for a few silvers before he left the inn. It was cheap, but the enchantment woven through it shadowed his face when the hood was up. With gloves and boots, no one would notice the bones beneath.

The summoner's collar still hung around his neck, but he'd be damned if he walked around looking like someone's pet.

He moved through the streets toward the Information Guild, keeping his steps even and careful.

"Sorry about the hood," he said when he reached the counter. "Got a few burn scars I don't like showing. House fire years ago. Voice didn't come out the same either."

The clerk, a clean-cut man with a calm smile, waved it off. "Not a problem, sir. Anonymity is our guarantee here. What kind of services do you need?"

"Information," Pell said. "General first—then regional. What's happened here and maybe some neighboring towns like Eiyuria or Valtsbin."

"Ah, a traveler then?" the clerk said, pulling a slim ledger toward him. "I can give you a brief overview."

As the man spoke, Pell kept still, hands folded on the counter. Every word layered over what he already suspected.

Eiyuria had changed.

The baron who'd ruled when Pell left—Kalstein—was dead. That was three years after Pell left for the second layer. The man's only daughter, Brina, had been taken in by Amberdean as his second wife not long after.

The match had shocked the surrounding towns. Amberdean already had a wife and son, but marrying Brina gave him legal claim to House Kalstein's title and lands. No one understood why she agreed—Amberdean had been a lesser noble in Kalstein's employ—but within three months of their union, Brina had died due to a bad fall.

That obviously sounded fabricated, but there wasn't any way he'd get the truth unless he paid the guild for that information directly.

Her death had left Amberdean the sole ruler of Eiyuria. He'd been granted the barony by right of inheritance, and everything changed afterward. Taxes climbed. Laws rewrote themselves. Kalstein's old estates vanished into Amberdean's growing domain.

The clerk flipped to another page. "Shallwick is governed by Viscount Gestralam. Old fellow nearing his fifties, but also a friend to Barons Amberdean, Visella and Tarena. There are a few others, but their relationships are strictly political."

Pell's sockets narrowed under the hood.

He didn't ask more. Too many questions about nobles drew attention—and he couldn't risk that, not here. Even if the guilds were meant to be neutral, the lords' reach ran deep. Nobles had a way of hearing who was asking about them.

"Thank you very much. That should be enough for me." He slid ten silvers across the counter for the information, nodded once, and left.

The streets swallowed him back up—hood low, steps silent, his thoughts turning cold.

Amberdean. That bastard. A wife already, yet still clawing for more—more women, more land, more power. And now he sat over Eiyuria like a bloated tick on a corpse. Just… what else is he after?

His thoughts swirled around to Elara. If he was willing to marry upwards to attain a higher title, then what would he have done to…

Pell's jawbones ground together, a dry crack of enamel on bone. He forced the thought down.

No use boiling over in the street. Not yet.

Thanks to one last piece of info from that clerk, one of the bars in town had the most gossip running around. Maybe he could find some info there. Although this was Shallwick and not Eiyuria—who knows? Maybe he could find some useful news that he could use against him. This was the closest major city to that small town after all.

Pell ducked through the tavern's low doorway, the heavy scent of ale and smoke phasing through him like an iron grate. The place buzzed with noise—tankards clinking, laughter spilling from one table to another, the hum of a dozen petty conversations blending into a single living thing.

He scanned the room. Miners and traders filled most of the seats, elbows crowding stained tables. A bard plucked halfheartedly at a lute in the corner, playing something slow enough to get ignored.

Good. Background noise.

He slid onto a stool at the counter, the old wood creaking beneath his weight. A menu scrawled in chalk listed drinks that all sounded vaguely dangerous. He'd been to this city a couple of times for trade, but never did he stay to get a drink.

"What'll it be?"

Pell's eyes flicked over the smeared chalkboard of drinks—half names he didn't recognize, half that looked like they'd strip paint. "Whatever's cheapest," he said.

The man nodded and filled a mug with amber liquid. Pell set a few coppers on the counter and took the drink.

He couldn't actually drink it. Skeletons didn't have that luxury. Liquids just slid through him and onto the floor—hard to look casual doing that. Health and mana potions were the exception; his bones could absorb those slowly. But regular ale? The non-magical kind? Not a chance.

So he faked it—he lifted the mug, took a feigned sip, and set it back down. To anyone else, he just looked like another hooded stranger nursing a drink.

He let his posture relax and his hearing widen.

To the left, two merchants were whispering about a con artist selling fake relics with painted runes. To the right, a pair of guards laughed about rumors of an escaped skeleton monster spotted at another town. One that still hasn't been caught.

Pell froze for a moment. That one's probably me.

"…new swindler in town. Selling imitation relics. Heard a guy bought a 'phoenix feather' that turned out to be a fire chicken feather down dipped in oil."

That's not the first time I've heard of that scam… is that item really that easy to fake?

After about fifteen minutes of nothing of interest and another drink—most of his previous one just stained the inside of his cloak now—he finally heard something interesting.

The door opened again, and a new voice joined the noise. Pell kept his gaze on his drink while the man came up to the counter. It was a middle-aged merchant by the sound of him. He slapped a few coins on the table. "Humrick's Ale, please. Big day tomorrow."

The barkeep poured him a drink. "Good'day Lars. You mean the auction?"

"Yeah. That one," the man said, grinning. "Heard some big shots'll be there this time. More items up for grabs, too."

"No doubt bout that one. Seen a lot of collectors arrive in the last two days. Few of them church bastards too. Some of the upper inns are slotted up with nobles or their envoys too."

"Aye. Town's gonna be busy tomorrow."

Pell wrapped his gloved skeletal hand around his drink.

An auction, ey?

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