Like the crafting nerd that I am, I visited a lot of places that my family—Brent and Delia—and friend—Valda—didn't want to go. I visited the docks to look at ships and wandered into a shipyard to watch people make them. They told me to get out, but when I told them I was an inventor and knew a few things about building ships, they still told me to get out. Then, when I slipped them a few coins, they left me alone.

  After that I went to an art studio to watch someone paint. Then a sculpture's studio, then a woodworking shop, then a wizard shop. The wizard shop occupied a decent amount of my time. I had many questions, the answers to which were just the shop owner handing me different books and telling me to read them.

  He was shocked when I bought them all. They were all fairly expensive books. I spent about 10 gold on all of them together. They weren't all crafting books, but since I gained the apprentice level proficiency in ranged weapons through experience, logically, I should be able to gain proficiencies through studying.

  The shop was a small building at the top of a hill that looked out over the lake and a large portion of the city. It was far bigger on the inside, which I suppose is a perk of being a wizard.

  The man was a very stereotypical wizard. Old man, long beard pointy hat and robes. His robes were blue, as was his hat. He had a mixture of chattiness and exasperation about him.

  When he was done handing me books, he was shocked when they all disappeared into one of my bags.

  "Is that an infinity bag? A true infinity bag?" Jeperson, the wizard asked. His eyes were wide with shock.

  "Yes, it is a true infinity bag. Technically, all my bags are infinity bags," I said. I gestured to the different bags that were strapped to my belt or sewn onto my leather armor.

  "Are you a master enchanter?" he asked.

  "I have master level proficiency in enchanting, yes," I said. "I also have master level proficiency in alchemy as well, but you didn't ask that."

  "I didn't," he said, "but it is fascinating all the same! How are you so skilled?"

  "My class," I said. "I chose a non combatant class, in exchange for the ability to learn and master all crafting classes."

  "What?" he said. "But you'd be crippling yourself in battle!"

  "Yes," I said, "I am aware. I do have a companion for that, but you'd be surprised how much a non combatant class can contribute to a fight. I may not get all the bonuses and extra fighting abilities that combatant classes get, but I can make some pretty effective weapons."

  "I'll bet," he said. He leaned in to whisper. "Are you willing to sell an old man an infinity bag?"

  "Yes," I said, "but only to you."

  "Oh, goody," he said. "How much?"

  "Normally, they're 500 gold," I said, "but if you make my books free, I'll call it even."

  "You have a deal!" he said. He quickly handed back the money I gave him, which was still sitting on the counter.

  "Actually, if it's alright by you," I said, "I'd like one of every book you have."

  "I can do that!" he said. He walked around the store, grabbing books off the shelves, left and right.

  "Did you want any wizarding items to go with the books?"

  "What do you have?"

  "Oh, loads of things. The main items, though, are wands, staffs, orbs, grimoires, mana stones, and scrolls."

  "What's the difference between a wand and a staff?" I asked. "Aren't they both focuses?"

  "Yes," he said. "Wands tend to be for short range, high accuracy, whereas staffs are for long range and power. Also, you can use staffs to walk. Wands, not so much."

  "I guess I'll take a staff," I said, "some mana stones, and some scrolls."

  "Just pick them out," he said, "and I'll pretend to ring you up."

  "What should I get?" I asked.

  "You're in a magic shop!" he said. "Be whimsical! Pick what calls to you."

  "Ok," I said.

  It didn't help much that my Analyze skill told me the stats and abilities of all the items. I picked up a few staffs and wands to see if anything spoke to me. I even opened a few grimoires, but they were all empty. I assumed grimoires must be for jotting down or recording your own spells, like a wizard's journal.

  To make it less of an analytical process, I closed my eyes and moved my hand through the air, until it felt like the right time to close it. I closed my hand around something smooth and big and round. It felt like a rock. When I opened my eyes, that's exactly what it was, a rock.

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  It was orange. Bright orange. It had an interesting shimmer to it, like metal, but it was unlike any metal I'd ever seen, and my blacksmithing skill knew nothing about it. It was pretty big. If it was metal, I could probably make something good out of it.

  "What about this?" I said. I held up the rock so Jeperson could see.

  "You've found the weird rock, I see," he said. "I picked that up on my travels. I just found it one day and put it in my pocket. Seemed like a good idea to do that the time. Couldn't tell you why. Maybe it needed to find its way to you. I don't know what you'd be able to do with it except throw it at somebody, but special class, you could craft something out of it."

  I passed it back and forth between my hands. "Maybe I could." The shimmer it gave off was mesmerizing. It had to be some kind of special metal. It had to be. I used Analyze on it, but even that didn't know what it was. It just said "???????"

  "Let me grab some of those mana stones," I said, "and then I'll be out of your hair. By the way, what size bag did you want?"

  "Medium should do just fine," he said.

  I handed him my most medium-sized bag, after dumping the contents out into a larger bag. I grabbed some attack scrolls, just to have something in a pinch. I grabbed a few fireball spell scrolls, a call lightning scroll, a couple invisibility scrolls, and a couple run scrolls.

  The run spell made you run faster, obviously. I grabbed two of the invisibility scrolls and run scrolls because I figured I would be with Valda if I needed to use it, and I wanted her to be able to use one, too.

  "Thank you very much," he said. "Hope to do business again!"

  "Me too!" I said.

  I dropped the rock and the scrolls in a bag. Judging by the position of the sun and the sundial in the main square, it was time to head back to the hotel. So I called that a good solo outing and headed back.

  We met back up in the dining hall of the inn and sat down for some lunch. We discussed what we saw and did. They had gone to a park and watched some street performers and I did what I did.

  "Hey, I met this really nice guy, Patriculus," Valda said. "He made me call him Cul, though. He's a level 8 paladin. He invited me to come on a dungeon raid with his party. I asked if you could come and he said the more the merrier."

  "And he seemed legit?" I asked.

  I knew I was always suspicious, but this didn't make much sense to me. Adventuring groups didn't like to share loot. Adventuring groups tended to only have as many members as was necessary to complete missions.

  The other type of adventuring party was people who started as friends and joined together for that reason. These groups didn't like to share either. The pact was the priority, and everyone else fended for themselves. Valda and I weren't too different. We joined together out of necessity.

  And that's why this didn't make sense. An adventuring party was best when they worked together for a long time. Adding a new member on a whim, when you weren't replacing a lost one, didn't make sense. And especially not for a jaunt. If an adventuring party was adding a member, that member was expected to stay long term.

  This felt suspicious to me, but I wasn't going to rain on her parade. I would just be keeping my scrolls close, and my hand crossbows closer. By the way, I did reassemble my hand crossbows and make more poison tipped steel bolts.

  We didn't need silver right now, because we weren't expecting to run into anything unholy anytime soon, but I made a couple dozen small ones and a dozen big ones for my arbalest. Oh, and I made another arbalest. I didn't want to get caught without any piercing power again. That was a disaster last time. Valda and I barely got out alive.

  "Do you think we should bring Glogmore?" I asked.

  "No, leave him in the room," she said. "I don't want to freak these people out. I know we have a monster license, but we haven't taken him outside yet for a reason."

  Glogmore was resting safely in Valda and Delia's room. An unexpected advantage of him becoming basketball sized was that we could travel with him and keep him hidden from others in a pack. I didn't want to try putting him in an infinity bag. I didn't know if living creatures could survive in those. Although I'm using the word "living" loosely.

  "Yeah, you're probably right," I said. I turned to Brent and Delia. "Looks like you'll be staying in the inn for a little while."

  "Ah man," Brent said.

  "Hey, cheer up," I said. "Now you can play with your toys and games you got. Play with Glogmore."

  "Oh, yeah!" Brent said. "That's a great idea!"

  "What about me?" Delia asked.

  I handed her one of the books from the wizard's store. "Here, read this book about healing magic. You'll fall asleep quickly and by the time you wake up, we'll be back."

  "Ok," she said. She took the book. She wasn't happy about it, but she accepted it.

  They both went up to the room, leaving Valda and me alone.

  "So? Shall we?" I said.

  "Let's," she said.

  We showed up at the park, by a gazeebo. A man in plate armor was leaning against the railing. When we walked up he smiled at Valda.

  "Valda!" he said. "I see you brought your friend. Hi, I'm Patriculus, but my friends call me Cul."

  "Nice to meet you," I said. "I'm Gwen."

  "Isn't that a girl's name?" Cul asked.

  "It is, but that's what my mother named me," I said. "And I loved my mother."

  My grip on my crossbow tightened.

  "Very well," Cul said. "Meet my party."

  Four more people walked around the corner of the gazeebo. They must have been hiding behind the bushes around the gazeebo. That wasn't suspicious at all.

  Was a tall, muscular fellow with half a shirt on. Probably a barbarian. Another was a thin woman with wizard's robes and pointy hat. The third was a ranger, by the bow on her back and the tiger by her side. And the fourth was a short man in a black hooded outfit that I assumed was a rogue.

  I never trusted rogues. It was probably an unfair prejudice, but I always felt like the rogue in the party was always doing things behind the party's back or they were the member who got their hands dirty for the party. Neither of which I found to be particularly endearing.

  They introduced themselves as Bartok, the barbarian, Willow, the wizard, Riley, the ranger, and Roger, the rogue. I realized all their names were alliterative with their classes. Even Patriculus, the paladin. Just another notch, in my "this situation is giving weird vibes" belt.

  "As I am the leader," Cul said, "and my name is Cul, I call us the Culling Party! Get it?"

  "Very funny," I said. "What do you cull?"

  "What?" Cul said.

  "If you're a culling party, what do you cull?" I asked again.

  "Oh! Right," he said. "Well, monsters, of course!"

  "Right," I said.

  He hesitated, and he fumbled. He was lying. I bet I knew what he was lying about. They called themselves the Culling Party—very uncleverly, I might add—because they culled their competition, or other adventurers. It was blatantly obvious to me, but Valda didn't seem to be aware of any danger.

  Even though I knew I was right, I wasn't about to make myself look bad in front of Valda by striking first. She would think I'd lost my mind. I'd have to wait for them to make the first move, which I didn't like, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.