The next morning, I had a headache, and I realized that I’d forgotten to bandage the new cut on my shoulder. It hadn’t been too bad, but I’d been getting used to it. And maybe there was a touch of still not seeing the body as my own.

  That poor shoulder had taken such a beating. I needed to start trying to block with something else.

  But, regardless, it was a good thing I’d slept on the floor of our room instead of the beds. Sure, they were probably cleaner than the floor, but I didn’t want to bleed on the taverner’s hospitality.

  As the others slowly woke up, I rushed to wrap the wound, then gathered up all my equipment and loot, tucking as much of it into the strap of my kit bag as I could so I didn’t have to carry it in my arms. I’d lost my old spear, so I kept the orc-made one for now, even if it was crooked and had a rusty head.

  “The ogre’s Presence is yours,” Shave told me. He waved over the taverner, who insisted on giving us a free breakfast as well, before turning back to me and handing over the ogre’s Presence. “I talked with the others, and they all agreed. It should belong to you.”

  “Thanks.” I took it and crushed it between my fingers, letting the power infuse me. With all the Presences I’d consumed lately, I thought I knew what to expect, but this one was so much stronger. Fire burned in my chest for a few seconds, and I gasped for air. One second I was standing, and the next I was on my hands and knees.

  After a few seconds, the fire faded, and I stood up. I nearly bumped my head on a tavern table, but just narrowly avoided a collision.

  “On the Pillar, lad,” Shave said. “You’re not supposed to use it all at once.”

  “A word of warning would’ve been nice,” I grumbled.

  “I’ve been forgetting that you’re an Atoning lately,” Shave said.

  “Is that good or bad? I mean, that you’ve been forgetting.”

  “At the moment, it simply is.” Shave shrugged. “You’ll find many things in the world like that.”

  “Right.” Once I caught my breath, I said, “So, the Labyrinth, then. I had a few questions. Why don’t we ever use them to train? I mean, we should be able to, right? Why not take over one and use it? We could fight each other inside the Labyrinths and stuff.”

  “That’s exactly what the sappers do,” Shave said. “Castle Urcia is built right overtop a Labyrinth entrance.”

  “And not us?”

  “There are practical problems. See, Levi, the System still largely determines our growth. The more work we put in, the greater it rewards us for victory. If we were to simply spar in the Labyrinth, it wouldn’t recognize that as greater or lesser effort than sparring outside. It’d see it as the cheap trick it is. It only works if we are truly fighting for our lives, against real monsters that have the capacity to kill us.”

  “So then how do the sappers do it?”

  “They have more resources at their disposal. They are able to seed their Labyrinth with captured monsters, and they use it for training and testing. But it’s difficult, and the average Dupe is expendable.”

  I grimaced. “Is the fighting that bad up north? That they can’t spare any resources to help us down here? I’m sure if we improved the lower-tier legions, it would help a bunch, but I don’t really know…”

  Shave reached into his kit bag and retrieved a map. It wasn’t a map of the world, and moreso just of a western continent. On the right hand side, to the east, was a massive swath called the Bane-lands, where the orcs came from. But from what I’d gathered, it was home to plenty of other monsters, too. A vast river flowed north to south, separating it from Gate, which was to the west. There were a few smaller nations even farther west of Gate, but I wasn’t too interested in them at the moment.

  Shave pointed at a southeastern region of Gate and said, “This is where we are. A Domain called Sud-Seaxe. And then…” He dragged his finger north along the border river.

  “That’s not the stream that passes through Slowbend, is it?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Shave replied. “It is the Thelea river. If we follow it north, we’ll pass the old Thelathemar watchtower, then even farther north is the bastion-capital, Eraen-Kalora. Only some hundred leagues from the border. The fighting is most intense north of Thelathemar, and that is where the Warlord diverts our resources.”

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  “But if the orcs open up a new front in…Sud-Seaxe, what then? I mean, we won’t be able to defend it.”

  “Perhaps the Warlord has information we don’t. Don’t be impolite.”

  I took the hint and didn’t push the subject. Instead, I asked, “What’s the scale of the map?”

  “I doubt it’s as precise as you’re used to,” Shave replied. “But riding hard, it would take you three weeks to cross all of Gate from north to south. Of course, your horse would surely die of exhaustion before then, so it would take longer in reality.”

  “I see.”

  Before I could ask anything else, the taverner arrived with our breakfast, and I ate in silence. The others trickled down and ate a meal of their own, too. But after a few minutes, I couldn’t restrain my curiosity. I asked, “Has a Dupe ever become a thegn?”

  The others laughed and shook their heads. Shave said, “Not once.”

  “How do you become one?”

  “They’re powerful Path-walkers who get land granted to them by the royal family, an Ealdorman, or the Warlord,” Ticks explained. “It’s usually not much—enough for an estate or two—and they always serve in the army, coordinating a few battalions.”

  “King or Warlord,” I said. “Who’s really in charge?”

  Elf shrugged. “The king hasn’t been seen in public for many years. The Warlord is officially the War-Commander of the Expeditionary Force Against the Bane. Appointed by at the end of the Dark Age. But it’s a mouthful, and everyone just calls him the Warlord. Now, we’re serious, Levi, you need to stop questioning him. You do not want people to think you’re working against him.”

  The others nodded, and bit my lip. No one seemed to question Elf when it came to history, and what he said aligned with the book I’d gotten from the Greenway merchant. Just with my history book had placed a lot of emphasis on the unification of Gate and the glory of the first Warlord.

  “How long have the Dupes been around, then?”

  “Almost a thousand years,” Elf answered.

  Ten centuries, and not one thegn…but then again, we were indentured servants. The odds were stacked against us to begin with.

  But I was getting ahead of myself. I didn’t need to be a thegn. I needed to get back to camp and take a look at my newly acquired attributes and skills.

  After breakfast, we set out immediately, travelling east back to the camp. We took the same direct routes through the countryside and moved faster without a wagon. After a few more days of travel, the chimney smoke of Slowbend rose over the horizon, and we stopped at Maurifus’ blacksmith shop.

  We all dropped off the scrap we’d gathered with Maurifus, and he jotted it down in the log with a quill, making perfectly neat notches for each pound of metal we brought in. Finally, he asked, “Where’s Trench?”

  “He’s on his way to Welkinmere now,” Shave answered.

  “The merc captain? He did something to cause it?”

  Shave nodded.

  “Condolences,” Maurifus said, dipping his head. “He was a good man.”

  “Spread his accumulated scrap around the rest of the squad,” Shave instructed. “And we’ll put in some more requests, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Maurifus replied. He shut the scrap log, then retrieved a different manuscript from the blacksmith wall.

  As the others placed their orders, I considered what I wanted for myself. I didn’t want armour that was too heavy, but I needed something better than chainmail. When it was my turn, I said, “I’m going to need a new spear.”

  “This is quite the haul, son,” Maurifus replied, pointing to the pile of scrap that I’d brought in. “I can make more than just a spearhead.” He flicked a glass lens out of his sleeve, then squinted through it at the scale mail from the ogre. “It has no enchantments yet, but this is wispsteel.”

  “Is that…good?”

  “It’s a minor arcane metal.” Maurifus tapped it with his fingers. “If I shape it properly, I can give you a small boost to any of your attributes. It’ll only work for a Dupe, of course, the way I make them. It needs the resonance nodes implanted in your body.”

  “...Right,” I said skeptically.

  “Which attribute should I target?”

  I tilted my head, considering for a moment, then said, “Agility, Perception, or Focus. Whichever’s easier.”

  “You have enough here for a new hauberk and a helm.”

  “Can you make scale mail?” I grimaced, then tapped the ogre’s armour. “I mean, not exactly like the ogre’s, but proper scale mail that would fit me?”

  “I can,” Maurifus replied. “And with the leftover?”

  I had a helmet and proper scale mail coming, so I said, “Can I get a pauldron?”

  “That can be arranged.” Maurifus turned away from the counter and picked up a pair of bracers from the counter, then set them down. “These are yours. You’d best take them. I’ve had a few customers eyeing them.”

  I picked them up and tested them out. They had a metal plate for the top of my wrist and leather straps to tighten around the bottom. It fit nearly perfectly.

  “How did you know my size?” I asked. “I mean…” I trailed off, realizing how silly the question sounded.

  Maurifus looked at me then raised his eyebrows. “You answered that question yourself?”

  “We’re Dupes…” I muttered.

  “Precisely.”

  “But I mean, Elf and Ticks are bulkier than me. There’s a bit of variation.”

  “It’s easy enough to tell by looking,” Maurifus replied. “With enough experience, you’ll get an eye for certain things, too.”

  I nodded, thanked him, then we walked back to the camp. As soon as we arrived, Galliard requested a report, and we all travelled to his tent to explain what happened.

  “Shame about Trench,” the commander said. “But I’m thankful it was only one of you. You did well freeing those prisoners, too. And since you visited a Labyrinth, I take it you would like to check a reading slate? I’m sure you made quite an improvement.”