Walking through the door in the back of Glogmore's Arena, we came to a vast hall, like something you would see in a royal palace or castle. Juxtaposed against the elegance of the red carpet, high ceilings, beautiful archways and columns, was a massive group of death knights sitting at tables playing cards.

  They all turned to look at us.

  "Can't you see we're busy?" one of them said.

  "Sorry," I said. "Is this a bad time? Would you like us to come back and fight you later?"

  "You would do that?" the same death knight said.

  "No," I said.

  "Oh," he said. "Well, then let's fight, I guess."

  He stood up, and so did all the other death knights. The one who spoke appeared to be an elite death knight, because there was a label above his head that said "Elite Death Knight." The others just said "Death Knight."

  "I have a feeling this isn't going to work," I said.

  I lifted my crossbow and fired a bolt at one of the death knights. They were fully armored, head to toe in black armor, wearing black capes, and wielding giant black swords. The silver bolt pinged off the death knight's armor and fell harmlessly to the ground.

  "Oh, shit," I said.

  "I'm going in," Valda said.

  "Try to keep them away from me if you can," I said. "I'm going to try to invent something real quick."

  "Sure thing," she said.

  She ran up to a death knight and slammed her mace into its head. That knocked it back and made it stagger, but it was still standing.

  "Oh shit," she said.

  "Yeah, no shit," I said.

  "Glogmore can't shit," Glogmore said. "Glogmore don't eat!"

  "Thank you, Glogmore," I said.

  "Yes, thank you, Glogmore," Valda said.

  "Thank you, Glogmore!" the death knights said.

  I don't think they were saying it sarcastically like we were. They seemed to like Glogmore. As Valda began to struggle against the death knights, Glogmore rushed into battle.

  "Glogmore help!"

  Glogmore slammed his round body into the death knight that was pressing his sword down on Valda's mace handle, trying to break her defense. The death knight went sprawling.

  "Glogmore?" the death knight said.

  "He's on our side, now," I said.

  "Glogmore, how could you?" the elite death knight said.

  "Glogmore conflicted."

  "Glogmore no!" I said. "They're trying to trick you! They think you're beneath them. That they're superior to you."

  The death knights shrugged.

  "I mean, yeah," one of them said. They all nodded in agreement.

  "Glogmore don't like condescension! Glogmore equal!"

  Glogmore smashed into more death knights, sending them flying. I knelt down and got to work on what I was supposed to be doing, inventing something. I looked down and thought about what I had on hand.

  I had a bunch of crossbows, a bunch of small crossbow bolts, and gasoline. The gasoline admittedly probably wouldn't do much. Catching the outside of their armor on fire might feel hot and hurt some, but it wouldn't kill them. At least not efficiently.

  The small crossbow didn't work, but would a big one? I pulled out all the small crossbows I had in bags and put them in a pile. What were those big crossbows called that they used in medieval warfare? Arbalests!

  That's what I would do. I would make an arbalest. I started with my Design ability. I formed what I thought an arbalest would look like in my mind. The image popped up in front of me.

  Then I ran my Test ability on it. A big red "X" appeared over the design. Didn't work. I changed the design around some and then tried again. Still didn't work. After several tries, I was finally able to Design one that worked.

  Then I Manufactured it. This took longer than reshaping and reloading the magazines had. It was a much more complicated design, and the materials had to be reformed to fit the needs of the weapon. I had thought it would work instantly, but I guess it was just much faster than doing it manually.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  After about a minute, I was starting to get tired. Then I heard a 'ding' sound go off. It was done! I had a working arbalest. It took my entire 180 mana point maximum to make, but it was worth it. Now I just had to make ammo. I didn't really have time to design a magazine for it, so I'd have to reload manually.

  That didn't matter too much, because I still had to crank the lever multiple times to get it ready to fire again, anyway. It didn't add much more time to place the bolt in the groove.

  I took out all the steel and silver bolts and put them in a pile. I decided I would combine the steel and silver to make bolts with a steel core and a silver outer layer. It would be thicker than plating, so it wouldn't chip off.

  I figured I could get more mileage out of the silver this way. I envisioned the bolts and their design. I didn't need to Test them since it was such a simple design, but I did it anyway just in case. It worked, so I went ahead and Manufactured them.

  I drank several mana potions before starting to get my mana back up from zero. I had to do each one individually. The Manufacturing ability wasn't all powerful.

  I could only make one thing at a time, and I was restricted to only being able to make things that took my maximum mana or less to make. I couldn't make anything that cost more than 180 mana to create.

  I could manufacture each individual part of a creation and then Assemble them, but that took more time. That aside, each bolt cost 60 mana to Manufacture. I kept drinking my uncommon mana potions, which restored 100 mana per potion.

  At the end, I had 40 bolts in total. I had better make them count or recover them and use them again. I was down to my last 5 mana potions. I was putting the bolts into one of my hip bags when a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see a death knight lifting his sword over his head.

  I grabbed the arbalest and rolled out of the way. The sword slammed into the ground where I was half a second ago. He tried to swipe the sword at me, but I dove into his dead zone. His sword was so big and long that it had the same limitations as a small spear.

  When an enemy got too close, you could no longer hit them. The death knight needed to create distance, and I didn't let him do that. I was crouched down right next to his legs and I walked with him when he tried to get away.

  While he was struggling to get an angle on me, I pressed the arbalest against the armor over his knee and fired. The bolt went through his knee and out the other side. I could hear it burning his flesh.

  "Ahhh!!!" he said.

  He fell to one knee. I pulled at his helmet until it came off. I expected him to be scary under there, but he just looked like a really pale man who didn't shower or shave very often.

  I pulled out another bolt, but instead of trying to reload, I jabbed it into his neck and pushed it through. He struggled to breathe, chocking on it.

  "Valda! Can you finish this guy off for me?" I said.

  "Why can't you finish him off?" she said. She smashed her mace into a chest plate, sending the death knight backwards.

  "I don't have the proper equipment," I said. I held up my arbalest.

  "Fine," she said. "Glogmore, cover me!"

  "Glogmore will protect you from being attacked!"

  That was oddly intelligent and non literal of him. Nice.

  Valda rushed up and performed an impact strike on the choking death knight's head, crushing it and spraying me with blood.

  "Gross!" I said.

  "You asked for it," she said.

  "Yeah, I know," I said. "Thanks!"

  "No problem," she said.

  "Maybe we should team up again," I said.

  "Yeah, probably," she said. "I'm not making any headway with those guys other there. That was the first one I killed."

  I looked at Glogmore. He was knocking over death knights left and right. They refused to hit him, presumably because they liked him, so it was easier for him to keep them at bay than normal.

  "Alright," I said. "I'll disable them. You take off their helmets and smash their heads."

  "Deal."

  "And go," I said.

  I grabbed the bolt out of the fallen death knight's ruined neck, and the one sticking out of his knee. I reloaded the arbalest and crouch ran over to the group of death knights.

  After Glogmore knocked over another knight, I stepped on his leg and shot him in the knee. Now, I had to run away and reload. Wait. Couldn't I just Manufacture the arbalest as a loaded weapon? Wouldn't that just reload for me?

  Holding a bolt, I tried it, and it worked pretty closely to how I expected. The string was drawn back, and the gun cranked itself until it was fully cocked, and the bolt came out of my hand and placed itself in the groove.

  This took about 5 seconds, which wasn't instant, but it was much faster than I could do it. And far more graceful. If I did it, it would take about 30 seconds, since I wasn't experienced at it.

  The best part, though, was that I could still run around while it was happening. The process wasn't affected by my movement. I ran backwards while it was happening, because the death knights saw what I did, and they did not like it. Besides, I was their real target, not Glogmore.

  The downside was the reload took 30 mana each time. However, I did recover a third of my maximum mana per minute, which put me at a recovery rate of 60 mp per minute. So I didn't have to rely solely on mana potions, but I couldn't rely solely on recovery either.

  As soon as I was reloaded, I kicked the closest death knight away from me. Then I ran to the closest downed one and shot him in the knee. Then I Manufactured a reload and darted away to wait for 5 seconds.

  I watched Valda pounce on the downed death knights, remove their helmets, and smash them in the head. Glogmore prevented the other knights from getting to her when she did this, and three death knights were running at me.

  Shit! Instead of running away, I ran forward and slid on my leather armored knees, barreling into the death knights. I found a knee and shot it. Then I reloaded, got up, bounced on my feet while the other two started to get up and darted back in to push one over and shoot the other in the head.

  His head was right there and easier to aim at than his knee. Then I reloaded and shot the other one in the head, too. Looking around, I saw Valda ripping helmets off knights Glogmore had downed and was relieved to know I wasn't leaving her with nothing to do.

  From then on, I went for head shots only. Luckily, the knights were all so bunched together that if I aimed at head height, I would hit a head regardless. After a while of that, we had whittled them down to two.

  One regular death knight and the elite one. Valda killed the regular one and Glogmore, me, and Valda advanced on the last one. He raised his hands to ward us off.

  "This isn't fair!" he said. "We're not allowed to hurt Glogmore! He's the master's pet."

  "Whoever heard of a fair fight?" I said.

  The level 7 hung over his head. The other ones had been 6. If we didn't level up on this guy, we would probably level up on the necromancer. Glogmore knocked him over.

  "Have mercy!" he said. "I have a family!"

  "You do?" I asked. I stopped walking ominously toward him.

  "Uh…no. Not really," he said. He hung his head low. He got back up. "I guess I have no choice but to unleash my true power."

  "What?" I said.

  He started screaming, and a blast of wispy black energy shot out of him. The Analyze skill popped up and told me he was using the Unleash ability. It increased his power by 50%. I didn't know whether to be worried or not, but the glowing white eye lights shining through his helmet visor made me worry.