Reinhardt fell.

  He didn’t just fall, he flew.

  It was not a gentle soaring flight like a dove on a gentle breeze.

  It was the plummeting dive of a falcon at prey.

  He didn’t notice the impact or the sudden fall, the feel the item. Like the last time he had applied his he could sense the in his respond to the presence of an Enchanted Item. Unlike a door being opened, this was more akin to pulling open a window. Reinhardt tore it open and felt the warm zephyr of a late spring day blow across his SoulEssence.

  The collision with the floor woke him up. He was lying on his side, staring up at the inside of his arm.

  Reinhardt shook it off, he’ll figure it out later. Right now, he was in trouble. The halberdier he had just slashed crumpled over its ruined leg. Before he could finish it however, the other halberdier was there and swinging the poleaxe in a broad sweep at his current neck height. Reinhardt hit the stone floor with a clattering of metal. The halberdier arrested the sweep of the weapon and stepped around to bring it down. Reinhardt had no intention of letting that happen. He came up on his other knee and thrust up at the armpit of the

  Before he could turn to run, or begin to back away, a violent shock ran through his body. The weight of the strike the one-legged halberdier hit him with pitched him sideways, the axe head biting into the seam between his cuirass and cuisses, right up to the shaft. Had he still had flesh there, his intestines would likely be spilling out of the split in his side. Instead, he felt the axe head inside his armour, and could sense the disruption to his , a shadow the size and shape of the halberd blade cutting into his . As he staggered, he swept the halberd from his side, tearing the blade free. When a rush of energy flooded into him from the fallen halberdier, he felt it smooth out the cleft in his , but it was not enough to gain another

  The blade crunched into the gorget, his momentum forcing the sword deep into what would be the neck of an armoured man. A killing blow, if it were a man. But the Essence enter his body. Then gasped as his soul expanded as it gained the needed to

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  Reinhardt gave it some thought. Since the group from may be doing another run, leaving the

  He jogged down the West side hall, checking the door to the lounge was open. Past the first junction and right at the next, past a pair of doors. Reinhardt paused. Otto had told him they were always unlocked. He tried the door on the right. It was unlocked and opened easily. The room was sparsely furnished - a soldier’s or guardsman’s room, at a rank that merited their own room. Leftenant, he thought, was the lowest rank that was considered an officer -at least in the military. Would castle guards have a Leftenant rank? Well, castles often had an entire regiment of guard units, some border were known to house an entire battalion. Maybe the lord of this demesne was strict about keeping the T.O locked up tight. A cursory sight inspection showed the Leftenant to be a tall, thinner man somewhat akin to Otto - going off the dress uniforms in the standing wardrobe. The uniform was a curiosity to match the marble busts, oil paintings and the unfamiliar constellations of the night sky. It was a cut and style he didn’t recognise, although he was only really familiar with the military dress. Maybe somehow, the Dungeon

  The room across the corridor was locked. That was a shock. Reinhardt stood with his left hand on the latch, twisting his sword idly. He was that Otto had said doors were unlocked. Was the Guild wrong, was Otto mistaken, or was this a change since theK had “auditors” travel from Dungeon Dungeon

  Either way, it did little to help Reinhardt in this moment. He lurked in the “Officer’s Quarters” corridor, staring at the Locked.” He could see now that he was looking, that the large doorlatch had a keyhole. Not beside it as was common design, but in the centre of the handle. “.” No way he could unlock the door, and it seemed sturdy enough that he’d have a time breaking it down. He looked at the heavy hammer in the guard’s hands. “” He thought, “.”

  Either way, nothing he could do about it now. He’d need to wait until this patrol passed by, and if his suspicions about how the patrols worked was correct, he’d have the full six hours to figure it out. Reinhardt closed the door behind him and stood staring at the wall. With no real need to protect his face, he turned his visor up. Things were different, he was sure of it. Locked doors and guards where there was none previously. This was in addition to all the things that had happened in just the last day. He wasn’t fooling himself, not really. Finding out his friends weren’t dead was one thing. But then finding out that he wasn’t exactly dead, but was now a decapitated head inhabiting an Essence filled the suit of armour and acted like his body, but it wasn’t his body. Running around, opening doors, hiding and then especially engaging in combat had almost made him forget that the armour itself his body. Being cut by the poleaxe had also revealed another aspect of his new state of being - his could be disrupted, his damaged. That was concerning. It had taken the absorption of the from the defeated monsters to repair it. “? The went to repairing my Spirit before expanding my Soul? Did it have to repair my Armour?”

  Reinhardt was just about to turn over another thought, when a sound reached him, a very specific sound that was actually the absence of noise. The silence shook him out of his mind, and he looked at the door. Silence meant the patrols had moved too far away for him to hear. He’d wait another few minutes to let them clear the area completely, then he’d face the guard

  He was getting into that Armoury, one way or another.

  Chromatic Grading Scale:

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  A massive shout-out to the chosen few, the merry band of Followers.