The mogrants didn't even slow down when they hit the steep incline headed up to the city, which was even more remarkable considering they'd been walking for nearly three and a half days straight at that point. Like Samantha has guessed, it took them a good hour and change to make it up to the base of the city, during which they passed a few far more tired and jealous looking travelers hiking up on foot. Brant surprised him by actually hopping down from his seat and running ahead whenever they spotted an elderly looking traveler, offering to let them join the caravan for free for the last stretch of the journey and save their knees the trouble. Asher's already high opinion of the man went up even further as he helped a good seven or eight smiling travelers into two of the empty wagons, promising them they'd be at the city shortly.

Once they'd finally arrived, Brant had them all disembark from the caravan, even those who were planning to stick around and head over to the next city. Apparently, those travelers still needed to go through the city's customs, and the cost of walking for four straight days meant the mogrants needed at least two or three days of rest before they headed out again. After thanking them all for being such excellent guests, Brant directed everyone over to the gates, where they underwent a similar process as back in Whikoga.

It was only once they'd already gotten in line, that Asher realized he had a problem.

"Oh crap," he muttered, eyeing up the guards with their glowing blue rings as they kept the line moving. "I may need to meet you guys inside."

"What's wrong?" Samantha asked, looking worried.

"I forgot about my evolved truth resistance I had to grab to fight off Bordan's Ring of Truth skill," he hissed, taking another step closer to the guard as the line kept moving. "The resistance prevents the truth from being pulled out of me, but it's super illegal to have. I don't know if the guards' rings will be able to tell I have it."

"I think you'll be okay," Samantha said, keeping her voice low as she watched the guards process everyone. "It would be one thing if it was their own skill, but there's a level of separation between using your own skill and using an artifact imbued with someone else's. I noticed it from both my bow and bracelet," she said, tapping the enchanted bracelet he'd given her. "It would look really suspicious if you left the line now, I think you should risk it."

"Whatever you say," he said, shrugging as he resigned himself to his fate. Worst case scenario, he'd just slip into the astral and run away if they tried anything.

He did at least remember to switch his class back from assassin to librarian before getting out of the caravan. That would have been an embarrassing conversation.

Actually, after losing the ring Bordan lent me, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these rings the guards have, he thought, peering more closely at them. In fact, after losing his Ring of the Gourmet and Bracelet of Observation as well, he had half a mind to try his luck at hitting up the second level and seeing if there were any artifact shops or the like. All he'd need to do would be to briefly try something on in order to use Permanence on it, after all. He'd had the same thought in Whikoga, but a quick asking around was all it took to confirm the city wasn't big enough to have its own dedicated artifact shop. Dormaul, on the other hand, was one of the larger cities in the kingdom. If it didn't have something like that, he didn't know what city would besides the capital.

It wasn't long before they got to the gate and he had to focus on the here and now.

"Please list your name, reason for coming to the city, and levels you'd like to access," the guard droned, clearly having grown tired of this long before she'd gotten to Asher.

"Asher Holden, here to try and find a new weapon. And I'd like access to levels five through two, if possible," he said, almost forgetting that Brian had mentioned he wanted to try his hand at mining. If something happened and he needed to Recall down there, better to have permission than not.

"It's ten shards for the fourth level, five hundred for the third, and two thousand for the second," the guard droned, riffling through some papers and scribbling something down on them. "If you plan to stay in Dormaul for more than one month, you'll have to come and renew your permissions. Do you have any mining-related skills?"

"Yes," Asher ventured, deciding now was as good a time as any to test how the ring would react to him lying. Picking up an evolved truth resistance had to have some sort of benefit other than allowing him to fight off Bordan's skill, he hoped. He also figured people lied about their skills in the hopes of getting access to the bottom of the city all the time, so if he did end up getting caught, the guard would probably just give him a light scolding. To his pleasant surprise, the ring glowed blue in response to his answer as though he'd told the truth, and the guard nodded again. "In that case, it's an additional two hundred shards to access the fifth level, at the cost of forty percent of whatever you manage to find, or a thousand shards, at the cost of only twenty-five percent. What would you prefer?"

"Two hundred shards and forty percent, please." He smiled, handing over the required shards and accepting his papers.

"Make sure to keep those on you at all times. If anything happens to them, you'll have to pay for new ones," the guard warned, motioning for him to head on into the city as Samantha stepped up and asked for the same for her and Brian, minus access to the second level. They weren't in need of any artifacts, of course, which meant there wasn't any point in wasting another four thousand shards.

Stolen novel; please report.

Officially stepping into Dormaul was like walking into a painting of what someone from the 1800's back on Earth imagined what a city of the future would look like. The fourth level was filled with people screaming and laughing as they shot around on ziplines, citizens taking both vertical and horizontal elevators to move across the city faster, and even triangular-looking skateboards being ridden around the city, moving all on their own via some sort of invisible magic. While Asher tried to figure out what could be making them work, purposefully not using Identify just for the fun of it, Samantha and Brian stepped up beside him, each of them gasping at the same incredible sights.

"This is… a lot crazier than Whikoga," Samantha said, having to speak up to be heard over all the noises in the city.

"I want to try riding one of those!" Brian laughed, pointing at three kids only a few years older than him as they went flying by, weaving in and out of the crowd to the shouts of many.

"That's got to be the most artifacts I've seen in one place, ever," Asher admitted. "We'll have to try asking someone where they got them!"

To Brian's delight, they quickly discovered that the enchanted boards were in fact free to use by anyone in the city. After finding a few of them lying discarded by the side of the road, Asher asked someone walking by and learned that the Volar family, the current nobles in charge of the city, had hired a handful of couriers, smiths, and gem cutters to help them mass produce the boards in an effort to make life in the lower levels of the city both more fun and productive. Getting caught hoarding one of the boards or even so much as taking it off the street was a serious offense, but anyone was welcome to hop on and enjoy them.

Brian didn't need to be told twice, leaping onto one of the boards and screaming with glee as he took off down the road. Shouting at him to slow down, Samantha jumped on one herself, and quickly began screaming for an entirely different reason as she rocketed after him. Laughing, Asher grabbed the last one, leaning into the wind as he took off after his companions. Now that he was using one, he finally let himself Identify the artifact.

[Board of Movement] - A personal vehicle enchanted with the Dash skill (tier 1).

Luckily for them, this close to the entrance to the city, people seemed more than used to reckless drivers who had no idea how to turn on a dime. More than one person jumped out of their way as they learned how to control the boards, and Asher shouted out apology after apology on their behalf as they made a nuisance of themselves.

I wonder what element gives someone a skill like this, he thought, enjoying the sensation of wind whipping past his face as he worked to catch up to his companions.

Zipping around on the boards was fun, but they were on something of a time limit here, and they had a lot they needed to take care of. Just as he was planning to ask if they wanted to check out the next level of the city, his eyes widened as Brian lurched forward, falling off his board completely and crashing hard to the ground.

"Brian!" Samantha shouted, leaping off her board and landing next to him far more carefully, cradling his head as she looked him over. "Are you okay?"

Brian didn't respond, merely moaning slightly as if he hurt everywhere. He certainly had a good number of freely bleeding scrapes and a nasty bruise on his head, but the fall hadn't looked that bad. In fact, from the way Brian had tumbled off his board like a ragdoll, Asher was pretty certain he'd lost consciousness before he'd hit the ground.

Before Asher could whip out one of his potions of Lesser Restoration, Samantha raised a hand and began hosing him down with water, cleaning his injuries and thoroughly soaking the poor boy. Everywhere she sprayed, his wounds slowly healed themselves thanks to her Soothing Spring skill, and it wasn't long before he looked good as new.

Yet even the cold water hadn't woken him.

"What do we do?" Samantha asked, looking even more panicked after her healing skill failed to rouse him. It said a lot about the fourth level of the city that people merely adjusted their paths to walk around them without a single person offering to help. "Should we use a potion?"

"Hold on one second. I don't think it was hitting his head that knocked him out, and giving him a magic potion might just make things worse," Asher said, looking around and spotting exactly what he needed. "Let's move him over here, and then wait one minute, okay?"

Getting a nod from Samantha, they gently moved Brian into an alleyway and out of sight of everyone. Double checking to ensure they were alone, Asher gave her a quick, reassuring smile before activating Recall.

And teleporting back to Whikoga.

"Rosh!" he called, earning a scream from the instructor as the man all but threw his bowl of soup he was in the middle of sipping from. Rosh appeared to be enjoying a slow day in his room with a book and a bowl of soup, half of which was now decorating his wall. Ignoring that, Asher moved on to the reason he'd come in the first place. "Super quick question! Is there a limit to how many enchanted objects a kid can use, or something?"

"Damn it, Asher, what the hell?!" Rosh cried, wiping soup off his desk as he glared at him. "You can't just pop in here like this whenever you want and scream in my ear!"

"Sorry, it's an emergency!" Asher winced, noting the scowl on Rosh's face. "Brian collapsed in the middle of the street, and I need to make sure he's alright."

"Yes, there's a limit." Rosh sighed, giving up on even bothering to wipe his soaked clothing clean. "Though it's not just for kids. It's tied to elemental advancement. Each stage gives your soul the strength to hold one more enchantment than the last."

"So if you haven't even gotten to the first stage yet…"

"Then your soul can support at most one artifact," Rosh confirmed. "Did Brian try and use two at the same time?"

"Yeah..." Asher nodded, remembering that he'd given Brian his own Bracelet of Observation awhile back when they were afraid of assassins getting the drop on them. Naturally, Brian had thought having his own artifact was the coolest thing ever, and he didn't even take it off while bathing. "Is that bad?"

"So long as he doesn't continue trying to use two, he'll be fine, he just needs some rest. Though he'll recover even quicker if you remove the other artifact as well. His soul is immature, so it's not doing him any favors."

"Thank you, Rosh, I owe you one," Asher said, grinning sheepishly. "…and I'm sorry. I won't pop in and yell at you anymore."

"Damn right you won't." Rosh sniffed, pulling his soup-stained shirt away from his chest and grimacing at the mess. "Otherwise, I'll make you take this stupid mark off of me and save myself the future heart attacks."

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