Part 2

Brin checked Marksi’s wound before he left the cave, but it didn’t look too bad. A scrape along his side, but it wasn’t too deep. He washed it out with clean water anyway, but that was all the doting Marksi would let him get away with.

Marksi hopped down to strut back and forth, proud of his new badge of courage. He marched on his stubby legs, long neck twisting around to see how his scratch interrupted the gleaming scales in the faint light.

“Yeah, it looks great. Very fierce. You look like a real [Warrior]!” said Brin.

Marksi nodded as if that was a given. He still had the little scar above his eye that he’d already had when they first met, the one that matched Brin’s own.

“We can’t stay down here. Hogg told us to get up top,” said Brin.

He didn’t leave right away, though. First he rooted around until he found a couple of sturdy sacks, which he filled all the way to bursting with stone. There was also a nice wooden bucket with a handle, and he filled that as well. Altogether it was probably two hundred pounds of stone, well within what he could carry.

At least that’s what he thought until he got to the tunnel. He’d forgotten how steep this thing was. Still, he wasn’t leaving without the rocks. He needed that glass. He was sick of working with little bits at a time. The slow pace had been good in the beginning when he’d needed lots of supervision to make sure he wouldn’t hurt himself or ruin Ademir’s tools, but that time was past. When Brin stepped into the workshop with a month’s worth of materials, there was no way Ademir would tell him not to work after hours.

He huffed and puffed his way up the steep slope, careful to keep his feet from slipping. True, it would be smarter to just make two trips, but Hogg had told him to go up and not let anyone back down. This way, he was still technically doing what he was told.

Hopefully this would be a useless effort. Hopefully, they’d be able to get some more people down here to restart the mining and the town would be swimming with stone. But there was always the chance that Hogg would come back with an army on his heels and demand that they collapse the tunnel. Brin wasn’t going to risk it.

What was even the problem? Davi could knock out squats at this weight without breaking a sweat. Brin could at least do this much.

Step by heavy step, he made his way back up the slope and into Neptune’s workshop. He stepped outside and collapsed, letting his burden fall to the ground. He gulped in huge breaths of air, reveling in how fresh and clean it was. Compared to the stench in the cavern, this was paradise.

Above ground and safe as he’d ever be, he couldn’t resist another glance at his options. He’d gotten some Skill choices when they’d been ambushed.

Upgrade - Shape Glass

Increased ability to transform glass. Increased ability to move glass. Improves mana efficiency.

Upgrade - Heat Resistance

+50% increase to heat tolerance.

Summon Glass

You can use your magic to call glass into being. This Skill grows with your understanding and experience working with glass.