Stan sat in the backseat of the car and fired up the Talisman. This was the new model, so the controls were laid out a bit differently and there were two cameras on the front for a 3D view of him. The game's title screen was in his own style, boards and bronze in front of an ocean. There were cobwebs on the logo. "Ha ha." He gave Parker up front a glance; she had an ordinary tablet and was reading. He shrugged and jumped into the game, happy for the chance to sneak in a session. "Endless Isles, please."

He reappeared on Central Island, where he'd saved most recently. The big plan of sailing out in search of an AI to shake hands with was a silly one, but it was nice to have a goal at all. A friends list showed that Dominic the mage was online, so Stan sent him a hello. While waiting for a reply, Stan tried out magic again on the beach. The Create and Metal elements together gave him a coin's worth of copper for each successful casting. There was a reasonably short cooldown time, so the spell was a dull but reliable income source. Knowing Ludo, though, if he stood there casting one spell over and over there'd soon be a land shark or a volcano to distract him.

With just a little new metal, Stan hefted his hammer and backpack, and hurried into action. First he dumped his backpack-load of lumber outside the workshop, and then he went looking for trouble. In the jungle he surprised a pair of those big lizards. They hopped back and let out a double snarl. Three of these things had been too many for him, but he'd been wounded at the time. These things were resources. Stan gave a quiet battle-cry (mindful of Ms. Parker) and leaped ahead to attack the one on his left.

They snapped at him, but he got in the first strike and darted behind a tree. From there it was hit and run until he landed a solid blow to one critter's head and knocked it out. He started trying to cast a spell on the vines near the other beast's feet, hoping to entangle the thing, but the process was too slow and he got slammed against a tree. [Major wound!]

He recovered, dodged, then found he'd lost his hammer. "I am not starting that whole process over again!" he said, and whipped out his knife for backup. He feinted twice to force the lizard back, grabbed the hammer in his other hand, then charged ferociously with both weapons until in a flurry of traded blows the second lizard was dead.

A contact icon flashed in the corner of the screen. It was Dominic, saying, [You're back! Want to meet up?]

Stan responded, "Sure. I'm on Central, heading for the tavern."

[It'll take me a while to get there. Man, you're still doing the most basic milk-run stuff?]

"I've spent too many hours daydreaming lately about how to break out of that. Watch this." Okay, Dominic wasn't around to see, but someone was.

Stan had two dead lizards and a backpack that held more than it should. He stuffed one critter awkwardly into the pack and dragged the other one along, heading for the Crown & Tail. Along the way, a third lizard jumped him. Stan dropped everything, whipped out his hammer again, and killed the beast in two quick rounds. He had two major wounds now, and his pair of minor wounds wouldn't fade until he was clearly out of trouble, but he was starting to get to the real plan.

He greeted the startled chef at the tavern by saying, "Here: lizards! Keep the meat but give me the hides, okay?"

The cook today was a woman who looked badly out of place, in a patchwork of wood and leather armor and toting a war axe on her back. "Uh... okay?"

Stan ran off to fetch the third dead lizard and towed that back too. He was in luck. While he waited on the skinning he cast his metal creation spell a few more times. So now he had a little extra copper plus raw hides. Next, the market! Up on the hill he found a cloth merchant and said, "I want that." He was pointing to the burlap tablecloth that held his actual wares.

The merchant laughed at him. "That's not going to give you any stat bonuses."

"I don't care; I just want a sack. Want some fresh hides?"

"Heh, sure. I'll even do it up as a proper bag with a drawstring."

A bit of crafting later (while Stan made more copper) and Stan had a bag to go with the backpack, both holding 50% more than normal thanks to his Merchant ability. He'd brought most of the lumber uphill with him, so he sold that too for next to nothing. He could always get more. He spent his profit on a single ingot of tin. Back downhill, next!

In the workshop he paid his admission fee, headed for the furnace, and skidded to a stop. A robed mage with a mask was staring at him and waving. Stan scanned him:

[Dominic

PUBLIC INFO

Class: Mage

Faction Flag: None

Note: "Initiate of the Vengeful Thorn Style!"]

From behind his blank mask Dominic said, "Hi. I've been powering up while you were gone!"

"Cool. What did you have to do to get a mage label?"

"Learned to do this kind of thing." Dominic raised one hand and an arrow flew up from his belt, shining in an eerie red glow. "If I keep practicing I'll be able to do a whole cloud of these at once." He flicked his hand and the arrow returned.

"And the mask?"

"More for style than stats. What about you? It doesn't look like you've changed much."

"Heh, well, I've been busy." He put his metal into the furnace and stoked it with coal; he hadn't found out yet who was supplying that and probably owed them. "Mind doing the bellows for a bit? I want a good quality rating for this; I'm making a bronze hatchet."

"Sure." The masked wizard hopped onto the furnace's set of floor-mounted bellows and started doing the dancing-on-arrows puzzle to bring the heat. Stan crafted a mold just like he'd drawn repeatedly with a 3D modeling program on his Slab. It was a pair of tight-packed boxes of sand mated together, with a hole shaped like an axe head, with a peg through that where there should be a hole through the finished product. It took some convoluted thinking to prepare, even though real smiths had done the same thing millennia ago. Dominic added, "That doesn't look like enough metal."

"You're thinking mighty barbarian axe. I'm thinking wood-cutting hatchet."

Slowly his creation took shape. Smoke bubbled up from the mold as from a magic ritual, making the air around him ripple with heat. He avoided doing the abstract puzzle that some smiths did, in favor of seeing what he could really make with his own design. When he cracked the mold open like last year's Winter Holiday presents at the Community, the new hatchet head gleamed and there was even a lens flare graphics effect on it for a moment. Stan had a handle ready by then, and he attached it and used magic to grow a bit of the wood into place and hold it.

[Crafting result: Bronze Hatchet. "Conceived in the back of a car."]

Stan brandished the new tool. Dominic applauded and a happy tune played.

Ms. Parker looked up from her reading. "Beat a boss?"

"Forged something, ma'am. I mean casted."

His plans were beginning to take shape...