The rooms were identical. Unadorned stone doors connected them. The corridor ended with the first, which had an open door leading into the next. Each had a low-standing stone altar in the middle, and another door on the far side that led into the next chamber.

  The first three rooms were empty, with open doors leading to the next room. The fourth contained a small pile of jewelry and a broken half of a sigil stone.

  I looked around the room as Arlo and Hanna crossed to the closed door on the far side. I breathed a sigh of relief — the room was clear.

  “There’s no lock for this door, no visible lock, at least. I can’t pick this.” Hannah said.

  “I might be able to force it open?” Arlo asked, pushing against it.

  I walked over to the jewelry. An assortment of rings, necklaces, bangles, and earrings lay stacked around the sigil stone shard. The jewelry was nice, but it was all silver — tarnished. Each piece of jewelry was tied to my mission.

  Quest Update.

  Investigate the missing jewelry. Upgraded to Bronze difficulty. You have found roughly a third of the missing jewelry. Locate the rest of the jewelry.

  Current jewelry found may be returned to Adventurer’s Guild for reward: Zinc Jewelry Chest, Copper Coins x5.

  “Why would we want to continue?” Elsetha objected, “the stone is right there.” She pointed at it.

  “Do you all mind if I take this jewelry? Each one is for the missing jewelry quest… it’s about a third of what has been reported missing at the guild. I’ll share the rewards.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Arlo said, “and you're right, Elsetha. Let’s take the stone up, repair the protection, and complete this mission.”

  I looted the jewelry and handed the broken sigil stone to Abernathy. We made our way back up to the chamber from before. We encountered a few more skeletons along the way, but Arlo made quick work of them with another torch.

  Abernathy repaired the sigil stone, which hummed gently. We rested, and a few minutes later the portcullis unlocked and rose back into place.

  The rest of the trip back to the Adventure’s Guild was uneventful. We turned in the mission results, and I also returned the jewelry I had found, obtaining a Copper Delver’s Chest and a Zinc Jewelry Chest.

  The Cooper Delver’s Chest contained a hip lantern that had two interchangeable tanks. One held oil and a wick, the other was for a bio-luminescent creature like a wisp or firefly, but it didn’t come with a creature to go with it. It also contained five more Minor Healing Potions and, my personal favorite after Elsetha’s brush with death, a Tablet of Purification. It was a small pill that, when consumed, nullified all negative status ailments. It went straight into a Quick Slot.

  The Zinc Jewelry Chest contained a Pewter Bangle. It was a seamless loop of greyish stone with no adornments. I inspected it.

  Pewter Bangle. Common Wrist Item. +1 Strength. This simple band of pewter provides a small amount of strength to its wearer.

  I tried squeezing it over my hand, and it grew slightly as it slid over, before shrinking back down to fit comfortably on my right wrist.

  We made our way back to the inn that had become a home for us over the past few days, enjoying dinner and drinks with light conversations. I spent an hour performing Radiant Winds to drunk patrons for my lodging and headed up to my room, exhausted.

  I hadn’t distributed stat points in several levels. I had been so caught up in everything going on that it had slipped my mind. I pulled up my stat screen.

  Charisma: 10 (8 - 1 from Human (Basic) Form, + 3 Equipment Bonus)

  Constitution: 8 (7 + 1 from Human (Basic) Form)

  Dexterity: 10 (7 + 3 Equipment Bonus)

  Endurance: 6 (5 + 1 from Human (Basic) Form)

  Intelligence: 6 (5 + 1 Equipment Bonus)

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  Strength: 7 (6 + 1 Equipment Bonus)

  Available Stat Points: 27

  Health Points: 65

  Magic Points: 12

  Current Form: Human (Basic)

  Level 9 Bombastic Busker

  I did a double take as I realized I had twenty-seven stat points to distribute. I hadn’t ever distributed the points after acquiring my class. How could I have missed this? Sure, I hadn’t really had much down time since entering the world of Veil, but that was no excuse. I felt like an idiot as I thought about where to distribute them.

  Intelligence had a direct influence on Magic Points, but I didn’t use those, so that was an easy pass. The rest of the stats had different benefits.

  Endurance would help with my overall Stamina consumption, but I had been alright so far with Stamina.

  Strength would increase my strength of arms, but I had avoided using my instruments as blunt weapons since that first incident, and decided against it as well.

  Constitution was helpful; health points were directly increased with this stat. This was a serious contender.

  Charisma, the bread and butter for bards, was another contender. It increased the chance of conversations with NPC’s going the way I wanted, as well as boosting charm and illusion-type magic, and provided a small boost to my song performance.

  Dexterity was the real contender. It increased my song performance, greatly reducing the failure rate, enhanced my hand-eye coordination, which would help with throwing enchanted explosives when out on my own, and increased my dodge rating, providing both offensive and defensive bonuses.

  I decided to put fifteen points in Dexterity, seven in Constitution, and seven in Charisma. I looked over my stats again after distributing the points, and lamenting having forgotten to do so before.

  Level 9 Bombastic Busker

  Health Points: 85

  Magic Points: 12

  Charisma: 17 (15 - 1 from Human (Basic) Form + 3 Equipment Bonus)

  Constitution: 15 (14 + 1 from Human (Basic) Form)

  Dexterity: 35 (32 + 3 Equipment Bonus)

  Endurance: 6 (5 + 1 from Human (Basic) Form)

  Intelligence: 6 (5 + 1 Equipment Bonus)

  Strength: 7 (6 + 1 Equipment Bonus)

  Available Stat Points: 0

  Current Form: Human (Basic)

  I pulled out my lute and examined it.

  Lute of Azure Skies.

  Unique, Mastercrafted Stringed Instrument.

  Provides the wearer +2 Charisma, +1 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity when equipped. Provides Mastercrafted Instrument bonus to songs, increasing performance by 15%.

  Hidden ability not yet unlocked. Using this instrument builds a connection. Connection required to unlock hidden ability.

  Connection Status: 75%.

  I read the Connection Status percentage and smiled. I was getting close to unlocking the hidden ability. I decided to test out my new dexterity, since it had more than doubled. I took out a coin and performed Kinetic Overload. My fingers didn’t just dance across the strings now, they soared. Notes formed in a blur of motion.

  I could perform the song nearly an entire second faster. It took some trial and error, as a certain tempo and rhythm had to be maintained for a successful performance. I played Radiant Winds and Kinetic Overload, figuring out the quickest I could perform each song while maintaining the individual tempo and rhythm required to complete them.

  I successfully scored my first 100% performance of Kinetic Overload. The coin blazed with energy. I pumped my fist in the air, sitting on my bed in the inn, the explosive coin laying on the bed sheet in front of me.

  “Yes!” I shouted, adding the coin to my inventory. I would just be practicing with Radiant Winds for the remainder of the night, so I wouldn’t lose the strong enchantment that the coin now held.

  I continued practicing for another hour, until I received what I had been hoping to achieve before going to sleep.

  Your Stringed Instrument skill has increased! (10/50)

  I inspected the lute again, and was able to pull the progress bar out of the description panel. I placed it above my health in my heads-up display.

  Connection Status: 76%

  It was going to be a while still before I bonded with the lute, considering the hours I had just spent practicing only netted me one percentage point, but that was okay.

  I was about to drift to sleep, thoughts of the day’s adventure playing through my mind, when my lute buzzed and I heard a muffled voice. Cahl.

  “Chanter, meet at the Northern Gate as the sun rises.”

  I sat up, pulling the lute to my lap and holding the section Cahl had indicated closer to my face.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked.

  “Yea, I can hear you. Sunrise. North Gate. I can’t talk right now.”

  “Okay, how are you doing?”

  Cahl exhaled before responding in a hurried voice. “Can’t talk right now, I need to move. North Gate at dawn.”

  “See you then,” I said. I lay the lute back down, but sleep had danced just out of my grasp with that… lute call? Why was he calling me in the middle of the night? Was he involved in some kind of stealthy espionage? It sounded like it. I would have to wait and find out.

  I didn’t expect to fall asleep, but the exhaustion of the day snuck up on me, and before I knew it the first rays of the rising sun were peeking through the window of my room, yanking me from a deep and dreamless sleep.

  I woke up in a panic. Dawn already? I gathered my scattered belongings and ran for the North Gate.