Logan awoke much later than he had wanted, his nap slowly turning into a deep sleep that carried him into the early hours of the next morning. Fatigue was no joke, and even with Regeneration, he didn’t recover quickly enough to use the last hours of the previous day. He had strained his mind too much from overusing his spells, but then he was draining plenty of MP, allowing him to cast much more than usual in a day.

Hopefully, the next location he had to clear would contain fewer enemies or at least situations where Logan didn’t have to use so many spells.

Sliding to the edge of his bed, Logan got dressed and headed out.

The early morning had sparse people on the streets, though stalls typically set up early to get good spots and to greet the late returning adventurers for trade. This was a good enough time as any for Logan to sell off all the gear he didn’t need, though he hid his inventory system as usual.

With so many pieces of weapons, armour, and trinkets, Logan was able to rake in 11 gold and 10 silver, with some up-charging via his Haggle skill. It was a grand amount but would have been higher if he wasn’t keeping some choice picks for himself and his allies. He would also keep any type of potion for himself in case of emergency. A fifth of the reward was just in loot, but then it wasn’t every day he could take all he wanted.

Replacing his Bowen daggers with level 18 variants, Logan also bought up a crafting tome to make use of the golem cores he had gathered, plus materials to craft new trinkets with them.

With enough time spent at the inn reading and crafting, he had a belt to replace his old one. A variant that would increase his quickly falling behind Strength, though taking fifteen of the cores he had harvested.

Replacing his old belt, Logan felt a surge of power run across his muscles. They tightened for a second before becoming denser, he could feel the destructive forces of his body heighten with the belt. He was almost comparable to Marcus’s 33 Strength, but the Devout could boost his ever further with magic.

Logan contemplated spending some of his income to recreate this item over and over, to get higher bonuses for his attributes, but he knew that golem cores were relatively hard to purchase. The MT had almost a monopoly over the market, plus the scraps being brought up by golem-hiring companies. He could craft the cores, but again the materials for such were already highly contested.

With the day coming into full life, Logan left for the Gerro Guardhouse to continue his work, not before gifting his hand-me-downs and spare items to both Marcus and Amalia as he saw them off.

“Ho, Logan”, Jirango greeted as he scribbled on parchment.

Logan approached the counter and looked around, “No Quayvan?”

“He was here earlier”, Jirango replied as he underlined part of his writing before stopping, “We got a lot out of the people you brought back, the devices, and some more divination.”

Pulling up a chair, Logan sat down to listen further.

“It seems your diligent attitude in hunting the AV club members stopped most communication between their locations. No doubt they will notice the lack of talk, so you’ll need to hit the next locations just as quickly.”

“How many are we looking at?”

“Two, ending with the main base… though it may be smaller as it is underground in what seems to be a silver mine.”

“Not hallowed, I take it?” Logan asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jirango leant back in his chair, “Thankfully not, but you wouldn’t have an issue with that either way. The MT will be sending some of their own into the final base, but you’d do best to get there as soon as possible after the other two.”

“Backup? Wasn’t expecting that”, Logan chuckled.

“Their mobilization will be slow, which gives you an opportunity to hit it first. It won’t affect your pay, but they have a personal stake in the situation, as it seems even Thermodan is linked to this business”, Jirango sighed.

“Thermodan? So he is the AV’s backer? That explains why he had to set up a spell-harvesting ring”, Logan replied with clenched fists, “Is it expected that I will face him there?”

“I’d say you’re more likely to than not”, Jirango looked to the side, “You fine with taking him out? He’s part of another hunt, so it’s extra, doubled if you bring him in alive.”

“I’m best suited to combating magi anyway, but I can’t bring him in alive if I show him my Spell Absorption”, Logan thought to himself. “It’s going to be tough to deal with three places at once.”

“Regrettably, that’s how it has to be. Any dallying will lead to people getting loose.”

“I’d prefer to fight with backup at the final base, but if we’re risking people getting out of there, probably best I go as fast as I can.”

Making his usual preparations, Logan warped to the first place on the docket for the day. A relatively large hut within the forest, puffs of smoke coming from several chimneys.

To save on casting too many spells in the day, Logan scouted the exterior and mapped out a good portion of the inside via cracks and openings in the roof before entering it under the cover of Invisibility.

With no sign of teleportation circles or identifying devices, the Spellthief let loose with hastened dagger slashes and swipes. There was less need for stealth at this point, but more for speed. No one in the hut could hold a candle to Logan’s level, so most fell in single stabs.

After hitting level 18, Logan no longer gained experience from level 2 foes, making many more 0s appear above the corpses he left behind. With the place clear, Logan warped off to the penultimate.

Wind pushed away the leaves atop a canopy of trees, far below Logan was an inn situated within a thick part of the forest. Tall wooden walls linked with the trees, metal portcullis gates trapping monsters to the outside world.

Logan raised an eyebrow at the location, it was smaller than he thought. It was just an inn. No larger establishments to be seen aside from a watchtower on either side. How had it kept itself safe for so long? Wooden walls wouldn’t survive much of a beating, even with all the infusement they could have seen over the years.

Using Identification on the battlements revealed a bit more to answer the Spellthief’s questions. Several gems had been encrusted within the wood, housing denser spellforce to distribute across the defences.

That explained why this inn was expensive, 10 silver a night per head in communal rooms. Outside of that, it afforded adventurers protection while deep in monster territory, as well as spitting at the ever-encroaching threat.

Thankfully Logan would not have to deal with all of it. The inn was mostly clean as far as AV Club activities were concerned. It was just being used as a checkpoint and dropoff and pickup point for materials and people.

Spying a wagon with a tarp getting double-checked before departure, Logan scanned the movements within to reveal an AV Club member. In total, there were eight people in the caravan, though only a single wagon to move the goods around. Two in the driver's seat and five on horses.

“Hey! All good”, the woman inside shouted as she slammed the wooden frame of the interior.

“Hear ya!” one of the drivers replied as they cracked the reins.

Logan had arrived at an opportune time.

With the wagon getting pulled away, Logan had his further vision of the vaskt eyes peer into the gaps of the white tarp covering the wagon and mentally commanded Dimensional Jaunt to apparate within it.

Driving two blades into the neck of the woman on the inside, Logan sucked the victim into his palm and awaited a gap in the movements of the others. With the bumpy movement combined with the winds picking up outside, it seemed the others failed to notice Logan’s arrival.

With some distance from the inn’s barricades, Logan eyed a tree far from the group, pulled his arm back, and whispered, “Wind Skystrike”, causing a scythe of white air to cut the trunk of a tree and cause it to fall with a mighty thud on the floor.

The caravan all jumped at the noise, and obvious visual to their side.

“‘Fuck was that?” the closest woman yelled.

“Monsters? Rush away!” another man commanded as he whipped his reins to hasten to the side of the wagon.

Logan jumped from the back to a man at the back, slicing him off his horse and kicking off to another who was on the blind side of the wagon. The slumping of the bodies and neighing of the horses alerted the others as Logan darted back into the wagon.

“Below take us, they have range!” the first woman reiterated.

“Leave ‘em”, another man ordered.

The wagon picked up speed and bumpiness as the group tried to flee whatever was coming their way.

Stabbing out sideways, Logan pierced the neck of the driver and shotgun of the wagon, causing the reins to get pulled in and the horses to neigh wildly. Creaking and cracking, the wheels of the wagon slid, the wagon coming to a loud halt and slamming as it realigned itself from almost tipping over.

“Below!”

Jumping from within the tarp, Logan threw out two daggers at the lead woman, toppling her from her mount. Landing into a slide and leap, Logan drew two more blades and did a spinning top slash at the other man, cutting him four times before landing on the other side.

The last woman brought up a crystal barely taller than her hand and began to chant, “Echoes, take me—”

Throwing his two daggers, Logan kept his hands raised and open as he chanted, “Force”, twice, sending balls of grey death to follow his knives as they impaled the final foe.

Clicking his fingers, Logan was only treated to the noises of horses and the sight of yellow numbers.

“Let’s see what we have here”, Logan thought to himself as he climbed back into the wagon.

Pulling open nailed crates, Logan saw several bolt shafts and crossbows. All neatly packaged and freshly made. Ranging from levels 1 through 20, these were armaments from afar to fuel the AV Club’s attacks on vampire-kind.

Opening another crate, Logan felt a wave of cool mist hit his skin. Inside were bars of white-silver ingots. A sensation of burning acid was felt as the precious metal was allowed to breathe in the air.

There was no doubt that this was hallowed silver. Typical silver that had been mined from the earth and then imbued with deific power and prayer. It wouldn’t harm Logan more than anyone else, since he was only a demon and not a vampire. But it was expensive, too expensive. The number of ingots worried Logan as to who else could be financing the AV Club.

The ingots here would run anyone a few emerald coins. Unless they were mining the silver themselves and had some way to hallow the final product. Logan didn’t know the process, outside of it taking a long time.

This left Logan with a question. Why was this caravan so poorly protected? Picking up one of the ingots, Logan focused his Symbol Assimilation over it. A minute passed before the ingot's form fizzled and morphed, revealing a normal ingot of copper. Flipping it over, Logan spotted a symbol had revealed itself.

A trick. Someone had made this look like something it wasn’t. False information got leaked or told. If that was so, the final base probably knew Logan or someone else was on their way.

He didn’t have time to look over all of what was in this wagon. Picking out a piece of parchment, Logan pinned it to the wagon and made a circle over it with his finger. The parchment gleamed slightly as glittery dust started to fall from it. A beacon for the guard to find this shipment.

This wasn’t much of a diversion, but it was one regardless. Looking to the skies, Logan warped away to the final location.

--- *** ---