The runic blades were stationed in the village of Mino, in the opposite direction to Nyümbakka from the main town of Na?tak. He approached Haylee to tell her his intentions for the day and got approval to travel, as well as a package to deliver to the Na?tak Guild hall on her behalf.

  He made the journey over the course of the morning, portalling to hilltops in a zigzag pattern to get line of sight to his next destinations. Finally, spotting the village in the distance he stepped through into the guild compound.

  “Hey, I'm looking for Koyo of the Runic Blades?” Gavin asked the administrator in the main compound.

  He was a burly man in his forties, shaved head and bushy moustache. He looked to Gavin like the sort of man that would drink lion red from the jug. His beady eyes narrowed as he looked Gavin up and down, apparently satisfied nothing nefarious was going on, or that he just didn't care he looked back down at his scattered paperwork.

  “She and her team are out installing the communication nodes, they aren't due back for days” He said dismissively.

  “Do they not have a portal user?”

  “No.”

  “Ahh lame. Where can I find them? Is there a map of their route?”

  “There is, though I suggest you return on fifthday if you need to see them.”

  “I'll be fine, the matter is sort of time sensitive.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I owe Koyo a debt I'd like to pay today, she would definitely want it done as soon as possible.”

  “Very well, here.” He said, slapping a sheet of paper down on the desk, lines expanded out from his hand, forming a topographic map with several red and blue dots scattered around and a line connecting several of them together, “they started here yesterday and have connected these ones here. The red dots are previously connected nodes and the blue ones are ones that have yet to be connected. I'm not sure where they will go from their last one, but it will likely be in one of these three locations”

  Gavin added pins to the map in his user interface to denote their location, having to guestimate their location since that area of his map was still greyed out.

  “Cheers mate” Gavin said, nodding to the man as he left the building.

  He jumped away the second his portal came off cooldown, portalling up to the top of a nearby mountain, then another. He located the site of their last node on the map, a cylinder of metal like a bollard in the middle of the forest, it radiated energy he could feel in his bones and was almost imperceptibly sinking into the earth.

  He followed their trail for half an hour until he was sure he knew their next destination, two jumps later and he was there. It was well after lunch time by then and his stomach was rumbling. Carefully, he set out a thick blanket on the ground and laid out a picnic for himself, complete with fresh juice, BLT sandwich in a homemade loaf of bread he'd sliced lengthways filled with various local ingredients as substitutes to approximate the real thing.

  He was taking his second bite when he heard footsteps and voices through the woods. His ears pricked up for a second before he relaxed, confident he wasn't in danger.

  “I'm telling you, there's something waiting for us up there, you can't feel it buzzing with magic?” came a familiar voice.

  “Is it a monster?”

  “I don't know, just a high concentration of mana.”

  “Yo, guys, I'm over this way” Gavin called, feeling the air chill as the party of adventurers froze.

  He carried on eating his sandwich while he waited, licking the trail of juice that had trickled down his wrist as the Runic blades pushed their way into his little clearing.

  “You know, you lot make a lot of noise” Gavin said, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth.

  “We aren't trying to hide” Xavier shot back.

  “You here to pay up?” Koyo demanded.

  “Yeah, actually,” Gavin said, producing an ingot of etherium from his inventory.

  “You actually have it?”

  “Sure do, you lot gonna stop for lunch?” He asked, taking a cream doughnut from his inventory, taking a bite and groaning as he smeared jam over the tip of his nose.

  “We have rations we can eat while we work.”

  “Well, suit yourself” he said, tossing the ingot to Koyo.

  “You fabricated this? I recognise your work.”

  “Yeah, I found a chunk of it back in Edomont, it's been sitting in my inventory for ages until I got my deconstruct ability to to level three.”

  “So you nearly did get there?”

  “Yeah, not that it matters now, but I got my expert smith, fabricate and deconstruct abilities there, enchanting is like a day away, I could have won our bet, but Sam gave me a kicking when I was too worn out to fight from enchanting through the night. Pushed myself hard enough my body of iron ability is about two thirds the way to level three as well.”

  “You're serious? You are crazy.” Koyo laughed.

  “Maybe a little. Well, now that's done, I should head back to my team, unless you feel like giving me a crash course in fixing my crafting skills real quick Koyo?”

  “I may need that information to bargain with you later.”

  “What about I put on a nice lunch, for you all, and you give me some pointers.”

  “No.”

  “Come on Koyo, you saw what he was eating, having something other than field rations would do us good.” Freya argued.

  “Fine, but it better be a gods damned feast.” Koyo said.

  “Excellent” Gavin said waving a hand over his blanket “sit and enjoy.”

  Pies, sandwiches, chips, and sweet baked treats tumbled from his fingers onto waiting trays and baskets. He set two pitchers of juice out to enjoy and a half dozen glasses.

  Xavier took a pie, inspecting It “What's this?”

  “Pie mate, from my home world, get it in ya, it's good for you.”

  He took a tentative bite, savouring the meaty flavours “I think I can say that this is definitely not good for you” he said, taking a second larger bite.

  “It's good for the soul.”

  “It definitely is, we've been eating dried meat and dehydrated vegetables every day out here, this is fantastic” Freya said biting down on a jazzberry lamington. “So good. What is this?”

  “Lamington, most of this food is stuff from my homeworld. Haven't got the drinks right yet though, I'm dying for a coke or a- hey, did you guys hear that?”

  “Yes.” Xavier said standing up, a long sword and shield appeared in his hands.

  The Blades formed up in a defensive position, Gavin sighing as he floated up above them, his D12's orbiting him slowly.

  A screech like a dying child made the hairs of Gavins neck stand on end. Fumbling his rifle from his inventory he took aim through the trees. They could all hear the crinkling leaves, rustling in short bursts and stops, though they couldn't see anything.

  “Shit, level three.” Kaelan, the group leader said “just one, this will be hard.”

  “Want me to go for help? How are your team at fighting above your level?”

  “We'll manage. You?”

  “I can hold my own, I'm probably going to be most useful resetting cooldowns, I can do that until I run out of mana then I can convert stored items and coins to keep doing it.”

  “Handy. In that case keep Isandro up.”

  “Got it.”

  With a flurry of feathers Leilani toppled, blood spurting from her neck. Gavin barely had time to react, dumping health into his new ally.

  “What the shit was that?” Gavin yelled as Leilani unstoppered a healing potion from a bandolier.

  “Dire Chicken.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What? Man it can do a lot of damage.” Gavin said, wincing as the ruined flesh beneath Leilani’s ragged armour knitted over.

  “Yes, Easy to kill but hard to catch.”

  “Yeah no shit.” Gavin said, floating down as he whipped his D12s into faster and faster orbits around the party.

  A shield flashed around Kaelan, this time the party were ready for it, Isandro immolated the area in a ball of fire. It tingled harmlessly against Gavins skin, even as he dumped mana into him to reset the cooldown.

  Gavin pulled on his orbiting stones, tightening their radius from him, they were howling now as their spiked facets bludgeoned their way through the air. Spotting the chicken he shot his two stones off, followed closely by a poisoned bullet still unspent from the last batch hed made in his fight with the giant. He scored two hits, eliciting a squawk and a bloody rent through his armour that exploded outwards in a burst of light.

  Isandro bathed them all in fire again, the smell of singed feathers thick in their nostrils. Gavin pumped more mana into him to reset the cooldown, slugging back a recovery potion as his health and mana dipped low.

  The chicken made another attack, pouncing on Isandro from behind, punching its beak into his spine and raking claws across his side. Freya put two thrown handaxes into it, exploding against the creature with a burst of smouldering feathers. Leilani shot a bolt of healing light at her downed companion, topping herself up with the same ability.

  Freya was the chicken's next victim, going for her throat, tearing a bloody chunk followed by a spray of blood. It stayed long enough to ruin her armour with its razor claws. Xavier and Kaelan hacked into it with vicious strikes, carving two shallow lines into its flesh as it battered the air, disappearing into the underbrush.

  “It's going for the last one to attack it” Gavin said the instant it made a flyby attack at its last two assailants, charging one and gorring the hand of the other with its claws.

  Gavin was ready the next time it made an appearance, he shot it twice and hit it twice more with his flying stones, using his force of will to drill them deep into its flesh.

  “Now it's coming for you.” Xavier said his tone suggesting that he thought Gavin was an idiot.

  “Good news is I can sense where it is, wait, no, it's just pecked them out of its body.” Gavin said as his two soulbound dice plopped to the ground.

  Gavin timed his bubble shield, conjuring it around himself as the chicken tackled him from behind. The beast was furious, popping the shield in the blink of an eye, grinding through his enchanted armour, and scooping clawfuls of flesh from his back as though it was no better protection than tinfoil.

  The blades lit into it, pummeling it with attacks and blasts of magic, the chicken uncaring of the damage now, only that it took Gavin down with it. Leilani juiced him with all the healing magic she could manage but she was no match for the sheer damage the chicken was inflicting on him.

  He teleported out and away from the fight, but the chicken came with him, latched onto him on two exposed rib bones. In a moment of panic he summoned his fortress atop them both, crushing them into the dirt. He felt the last of his life force die inside him, then flare again as his defender of the weak trait bring him back up to full health.

  He felt the immense weight on him, dismissing his fortress before it could crush him to death a second time. The chicken had detached itself, stunned momentarily. Gavin teleported away, feeling healing energy flood back into him. His mana began rocketing up too, and he pushed it back into his armour, restoring the shield

  Returning to the fight he found the blades wailing on the chicken, hacking it to pieces. Gavin joined them, stabbing it through the face with his spear, pinning it to the ground while the others dismembered it.

  Finally, he felt its life force ebb to nothing. He dismissed his spear, then sat back against a tree, exhausted.

  “I think I have a new least favourite monster ” He wheezed3, “a dire chicken? How am I going to tell my team I got killed by a chicken?”

  “Dire chickens are no joke.” Kaelan said, “there's no shame in being outmatched, especially when you were unprepared and under geared.”

  “On my world we have billions of chickens, we farm them in tiny little cages that aren't much bigger than they are. I'm thinking they deserve it now, Jesus christ that hurt.”

  “How many defensive powers do you have?” Leilani asked “that was a lot of damage you just took.”

  “Two, just one that increases my resistances a bit and the bubble shield. I've got a defender of the weak title, it increases my constitution and brings me back up to full health if I nearly die.”

  “That's a neat trick, how'd you get that?” Freya asked.

  “Died trying to save a guy.”

  “You died?”

  “Couple of times, yeah, more importantly, lunch is ruined.” Gavin said surveying the battlefield, torn apart and cratered.

  “Never mind that, what was that weapon you were using?” Koyo asked.

  “Oh, this?” He said tossing her his rifle “It's what we use back on my world to kill each other instead of using magic.”

  Koyo turned the weapon over in her hands, inspecting it. “I could use one of these, mind if I make a copy?”

  “Uhh, I guess not.” Gavin shrugged “you are going to give me some crafting training though right?”

  “I'll give you the good stuff for letting me copy this design.” Koyo laughed, her eyes flashing blue, “you said you can copy spells? Copy my inspection power, it’s a ritual, it'll help when you combine it with your vision power.”

  “Sweet as” Gavin said, his eyes turning the same hue.

  “Here, take a look” she said, handing the weapon back.

  Gavin took his gun, looking at it through a new light. He couldn't so much see the grain of the metal so much as feel it, like running fingers through grass. It was rough, a chaotic lump of metal brute forced into shape.

  “Its pretty shit, yeah.” he said inspecting the weapon, “shooting those level two bullets has damaged it a bit too.”

  “Practice making the grain pattern more uniform, come find us sixth day when we're back at the village, I'll give you a day of training.”

  “Awesome. Well, anyway, I think I should loot this chicken and get back to camp anyway, you guys have fun with the whole sleeping outside thing.” Gavin said packing up his ruined picnic.

  ***

  “What took you so long? And why did you dismiss the fortress?” Sam asked furiously when he returned to Nyümbakka. “Have you been fighting?”

  “Yeah, little bit, helped the runic blades kill a dire chicken, dropped the fortress on it.”

  “That was good thinking, those things can be lethal, is everyone okay?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, everyone's fine, gonna need Judy to make a new fortress, I won't be able to summon mine until midnight.”

  “Sorry.” Judy said, striding over wearing a copy of Sam's tree form, my copy power will be on cooldown till nearly midnight too.”

  “Well shit, good thing I have a bunch of mana to reset the cooldown then right? Also, looted a shit load of money off that chicken, and some actual chicken, man have I got a treat for you lot tonight” Gavin said, rubbing his hands together.

  He spent the afternoon tinkering with his new copied ability while in the kitchen experimenting. He fabricated a cube of iron, feeling its grain structure, the iron molecules arranging themselves in a crystal lattice as he worked. He worked to get the structure perfectly uniform, completely random, different patterns and spacing. With a variety of combinations he experimented with making weapons, then enchanting them to get a feel for the effect. With even minimal effort he was seeing immediate improvements in the strength of his weapons, as well as adjusting the physical qualities of the weapons themselves.

  Between bouts of crafting he experimented with several recipes for dinner, settling on one he was happy with. The best part about cooking in this world was the ability to store food in his inventory, preserving it exactly as it went in. Over the next few hours he had a massive quantity of food cooked and stored, ready to eat.

  “Alright guys, come and get it” Gavin called, setting the table, a grin on his face.

  The team filed in, noses perking up at the unfamiliar smell. They all took their seats around the round table, a pile of food in the centre.

  “What's this?” Val said, sliding into her chair.

  “Kentucky fried chicken, mashed potato and gravy, bread rolls and coleslaw. It's a delicacy from my world.”

  “Why is it in buckets?” Sam asked.

  “Because that's how it comes.” Gavin shrugged, taking a piece of fried goodness and crunching down on the crispy shell “ohh. Sooo good.”

  “This is actually really good” Judy said taking a chunk out of a leg.

  “Wait till you try out the potato and gravy, it tastes like happiness.” Gavin said, scooping a spoonful from its thin wooden punnet.

  “This salad isn't bad” Sam said taking a small bite.

  “That was the hardest to get right, you don't have mustard here, so it's a little off. It tastes okay, just not exactly what I was going for.”

  “Your world must be a dangerous place to eat, your food is always really tasty.” Judy said.

  “And full of fat” Sam sighed, biting into a piece of chicken.

  “Yeah, like a third of the population are obese.” Gavin said offhandedly through a mouthful of food.

  “I did think you used to be a little heavy.” Sam said waving a half eaten drumstick at him.

  “That's just a couple years of healthy eating piled onto sixteen years of poverty, if I'd got here a few years later all those pies would have caught up with me.”

  “You still eat a lot of pies now though.”

  “Yeah, but back then I wasn't going on a five kilometre run every morning and training half the day like some lunatic MMA fighter.”

  “That's fair.” Sam shrugged.

  “Well, hate to love and leave you, but I've got work to do tonight, I'm thinking I'm gonna get my gun up to level two, I won't be prioritising my own gear again until you all get something good.” Gavin said “so think about what you want most and I'll find a way to make it work, Judy, I'll need some input from you on your bow, I'll trial a few designs over the next couple days to see what you like.”

  Gavin retired to his workshop to begin the reforging process. He used the existing weapon as a template, replacing each component with an identical level two equivalent, taking extra care to fabricate everything as good as he could get it with his newfound insight into the material he was creating. He replicated the same enchantment, though heavily reinforced and empowered. The end result was a weapon designed to kill, and keep killing.

  He lined up his fifteen soulbound rounds, reforging each of them in turn. He had a significant stash of level two adamantium, and he used that now for the bullet and the solid casing, with an explosive enchantment ready to blow as soon as the compressive force of the firing pin struck it. He fabricated the bullets with intentional flaws along shear lines, they'd break apart on contact, hopefully to detonate a cone of shrapnel into the target.

  It was midnight by the time he pulled himself into bed, completely drained from hours of crafting.

  [Item: O'l reliable]

  [Type: Weapon, rifle]

  [Rarity: Level 2, Legendary]

  [Description: Aim only at things you want very dead]

  [Effect: Fires a loaded projectile at the target dealing additional force damage.]

  [Effect: Increases users [Agility] attribute while aiming]

  [Effect: Item durability substantially increased]

  [Effect: Soulbound]

  [Item: Devastation round]

  [Type: Ammunition]

  [Rarity: Level 2: Legendary]

  [Description: warning, will cause injury and death, you probably won't even feel it]

  [Effect: Activate to trigger enchantment. Uses stored mana to propel ammunition with additional force energy]

  [Effect: detonates on contact with an enemy dealing [radiant] and [force] damage.]

  [Effect: soulbound]