Within the quiet stone chambers of Duskspire's inner keep, Lumberling sat cross-legged beneath the steady glow of a single lantern. The light flickered across the wooden floor and caught the dust that had begun to settle on his spear, leaning untouched against the wall.
It wasn't negligence.
It was focus.
His mind was elsewhere, on edges that had dulled, on skills that hovered just shy of the next threshold. Beginner Hammer Shock, Beginner Concealment, Beginner Swordsmanship, Beginner Shieldmanship, Beginner Cudgel Fighting… all of them nearly ready to evolve. One more push. And they'd level.
He stood and walked to the desk.
There, neatly stacked, lay the weight of months of effort. Skill manuals collected with blood-earned gold and scavenged from corpses. Each one a thread of knowledge, a sliver of someone else's mastery, now his to inherit.
