“You've been busy while I've been gone, I see,” Josh said.

  Abraham turned away from his conversation with his wife and smiled. “Yeah. We think we've got something worthwhile by now.”

  Miriam stepped forward. “We've got eight platforms ready.” Her eyes flicked over to Ruth. “Do you think you can manage the levitation trick?”

  “That's why I'm here!” she said happily. Her smile softened. “But, uh, I'm not sure. Lifting them is the easy part, doing it consistently is going to be tricky.”

  Miriam gave her a stunning smile. “Don't worry, we can work on it together!”

  Ruth brightened. “Oh, did you take a Crafter class too?”

  “No, but I think I can give you some pointers.” She took Ruth's hand and pulled her over to the nearest car. It was missing its wheels, its windows, and probably ten more expensive parts on the inside. Josh decided to leave them to it.

  Abraham walked up, rubbing greasy hands on a rag. “I'm confident that we can get the cars to work,” he said. “Miss Moore's runes are the only part I'm not sure about, but I think they'll figure it out.” He smiled in his wife's direction for a moment, before turning back to Josh. “I'm still not sure about the train linkages, or your cabins. If we're going to do that, do you really need the cars?”

  “We can scratch the cabins.” Honestly, Josh had just wanted to be able to stand up inside the vehicles. It was a stupid extra complication on an experimental prototype. “How many of the cars are running, right now?”

  “Four,” Abraham said without any hedging. He waved a hand at the garage. “Like I said, I'm confident that we can get the next four working. Everything runs off good old-fashioned biodiesel, too, so we didn't have to convert anything.”

  “Was that a concern?” Darius asked, speaking up for the first time.

  “Yeah, I don't think I've ever ridden in a gasoline car,” Josh said. “Everything was moved over to petrol long before the end.”

  Abraham raised an eyebrow. “You do realize petrol used to be a word for gasoline, correct?”

  “Yes, well. Now it means biodiesel.” It wasn't as though there was much of anyone around to disagree with him. Sometimes it felt like it was literally just his sister and Mary's family. “I wish we had a refinery here.”

  “Not much use for one,” Abraham said. “At least, there wasn't. It's not as though it's expensive to ship in.”

  Josh supposed that was true enough. “I can put a few cans in my storage ring.” He shook his head. “Sorry, mate, got off track. What do you need me to help with, then?”

  “Do you still have the blueprint for those linkages we worked on?”

  “...yes?” Josh raised an eyebrow. “You know those don't disappear until the reset, right?”

  Abraham gave a small laugh. “Maybe I should have said, are you willing to work on them more? As I said, with their current configuration, I'm not sure they will work perfectly for our purposes. If one of the cars goes down, there is no quick release mechanism.”

  Josh nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Maybe even make it automatic? But then how to keep it from jumping off like a frog on a plate...”

  “I still think you are ignoring the obvious project,” Darius said. “Flying cars are a marvelous idea, but if we can't make them work, we should focus on something simpler. A juggernaut truck that can plow through the Jungle.”

  Josh waved a hand, dismissing him. “If you want to play with that monster truck more, be my guest. Put some saw blades on it or something.”

  They spent a few hours working on the linkages. Josh didn't get much experience, as all the new blueprints were just considered variants of his existing one. Still, he thought it was a productive time. He also discovered that he could designate one of the variant blueprints as the new “primary.” It didn't seem to do anything to the experience gains, but it cleaned up his interface a bit, so that was nice.

  It had been a big day, though, so he was dead tired. He had no idea where Ruth was getting the energy to keep going. She was still carving runes under Miriam's direction as if it was her sole purpose in life. At least she had something to do besides fight. He, of all people, wouldn't throw shade for her wanting to fight. But you had to do something else or you'd go mental.

  It was growing dark by the time he stepped outside, and there weren't many people out on the streets. Even in a decent-sized town like this, you didn't want to spend too much time out at night. Walls were only so much protection.

  The streets were reasonably well-lit, at least. The new Enchanters had been making plenty of rune-lights as practice. That had also led to the revelation that apparently enchanted items—or at least certain types—drew mana from the air. With so many around, they were actually reducing the ambient mana that people could draw on for other things. Josh felt as though he had probably heard that before somewhere. It wasn't an actual problem yet, but Baara had started drafting legislation to limit the number of lights drawing on the mana, and keep them turned off during the day.

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  Once again, Josh was glad he didn't have to deal with that headache. He hadn't been planning ahead this much when he had usurped the previous mayor. His primary goal had just been to get his friends out of paying stupid taxes. Still, putting Baara in a position of power turned out to be a grand idea.

  There was an alley between two buildings that was dark. Josh frowned. This road led to the back of the mayor's office. He had used it to leave earlier in the day. Still, he wasn't in the mood to risk walking down a dark alley this close to the Jungle. There were too many monsters that specialized in stealth. There was a reason that most people only hunted during the day.

  He turned his back on the alley and took four steps. Then he spun back around and threw an [Empty Chop] behind him.

  Jael dodged like a shadow, flattening against the wall in a way that no human should ever be able to manage. Josh pressed the advantage as best as he could, throwing another [Empty Chop] at her. Her class was focused on stealth and ambushes. She had little defense, but she could annihilate him if he gave her a chance to recover.

  Unfortunately, she was hardly a novice. Instead of trying to dodge to the side again, she flowed up the side of the building as though she was made of ink and smoke. She leaped off the wall once she was high enough, landing behind Josh with two black knives in her hands.

  Josh had his ax out, and his missing fingers were throbbing. He had decent armor these days, between the pieces he'd looted from Mizuno and the things the new Crafters had managed to cook up. But he'd need better than decent to survive a Living Shadow Blade, even though she was like half his size. He knew for a fact that she had at least one spell that could ignore most of his defenses.

  “Any chance we can talk this out?” he asked, only half-joking.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are a threat.”

  He let out a long breath. “Lady, has anybody ever told you you've got a one-track mind?”

  “Yes.”

  Well, at least she was honest. She was still a complete nutter, of course. “Look, you and your boss have been...” He sighed again. “This has been a mess from start to finish. I want to blame you for everything, but I'll admit I had a hand in stirring up this pot.” A small hand. “No, you know, I need answers. Ruth's dad figured out who I was, and went straight to the assassin option?”

  “I have a very specific set of skills,” Jael said, unconcerned. “I was the only tool available. Jonah believed that if I failed for whatever reason, you would flee to him for aid. This would allow him to re-evaluate and move on.”

  “But why would I—oh. He didn't know Ruth knew about you. You were supposed to just be some mysterious assassin showing up out of nowhere. Then we'd run back to our wealthy benefactor.”

  A nod. Josh kept an eye on her knives. She remained ready to use them, but she hadn't moved forward yet. With his sky-high Perception and Sensitivity scores, it took him effort to zero in on her, but he did it. He could even sense her mana, a bit, and she was keeping it mostly still.

  “Well,” Josh said. “He's not a complete plonker, then.” He gave her a flat look. “Still a mad choice for your brother.”

  “Brother-in-law,” Jael corrected, so fast that it sounded like a reflex. “He married my sister.”

  “Oh. Sure, yeah.” He paused. “Look, I know you're working for the orc and the dragon and all that now, but you get how I'm not the lynchpin any more, right? Killing me won't stop knowledge from spreading. It won't stop the Crafter classes from spreading.” He shook his head. “I can't think what you're even doing here, especially if you're not trying to murk me—”

  Josh froze. A distraction.

  Behind him, he heard the sound of boots on dirt. Someone with a stealth class had been sneaking up on him, very slowly. They had realized they had been made, and decided to accelerate their move.

  Josh spun around with an [Empty Chop]. He caught the old mayor Hawkins, dressed all in black, right in the chest. The man's shroud caught the art, though it did shatter. He didn't flinch, and tried to hit Josh in the neck with something. A knife? Josh stepped back, dodging by an inch, and threw out another [Empty Chop].

  Several things happened at once.

  First, Josh felt strong hands grab his arms, pinning him in place as solidly as if he was trapped in a coffin. Second, his art hit Hawkins again, this time throwing up a spray of blood. Hawkins screamed, and this time he did flinch back. It didn't help Josh much, though, because he couldn't move despite all his struggling.

  Third, he heard a girlish scream. All three of them turned to see that Baara had wandered out of the office at some point. She stared at the scene in horror, hands over her face.

  Josh made his decision instantly. Baara didn't even have her father's Pyrolance, and Josh wouldn't have bet on her odds against one of these people in the best of circumstances. She wasn't a fighter.

  “RUN!” he yelled. He specifically didn't use her name. If they didn't know who she was, they might think she was no one important. “Find Ruth, the girl with the hammer!”

  Baara looked briefly confused, but turned on her heel and fled. She'd likely be back in minutes.

  He seriously doubted he had minutes.

  Hawkins cursed as he wiped his mouth. He had an empty potion bottle in his hand. “No time for gloating, then,” he muttered. He snapped something around Josh's neck. With the strong arms pinning him, he had no chance of dodging.

  “Stop,” Hawkins said.

  Josh stopped struggling.

  Well, he thought. Shit.