It took two more days of full rest before I was officially released from the hospital.At least the food was good — rich stews, hearty bread, meat that actually tasted like meat.And the portions? Generous enough that even I couldn't find something to complain about.

  Every day, before and after the mandatory checkups, I made sure to visit Hope.Just sitting there. Watching her breathe.Talking to her sometimes even if she couldn't answer.Not sure if it helped her or me more.

  When they finally let me walk out of that place. it was like waking up in a new life again.A rougher, bloodier one.

  When I arrived back at my room, the first thing I noticed was the gear.Three full sets of armor, stacked carefully against the walls.A few weapons laid out across the table, including the greatsword I'd torn from the battlefield, and a thin, wicked saber that had cost me my arm.

  I moved closer, curious despite myself.

  The armors looked pretty basic at first glance — rough steel, some dents here and there — but one of them caught my eye.On the inside of the plates, hidden where casual inspection wouldn’t notice, were glyphs — intricate, swirling, woven like Celtic knots, but with a fluidity that felt almost alive.

  Magic.

  I reached out and brushed the inside of the cuirass with my fingertips, the metal warm under my touch like it had its own heartbeat.

  I would keep the best parts of the three sets and combine them with what I already had.Wasn’t like I had a blacksmith on call, but I could at least mix and match like a half-drunk scavenger.Might not look pretty, but it’d get the job done.

  Would definitely have some problems getting geared up for a while though.Strapping plate to yourself with one hand?Yeah, that was gonna be an adventure all on its own.

  In the end, what I kept was a mix of black runic articulated armor and heavy riveted chainmail underneath.The runes humming low under the surface, promising a little extra protection — or maybe just the illusion of it.Either way, I'd take it.

  The twin axe fighting style I was starting to get fond of?Dead as a dream now.

  I strapped a single axe on my right hip, familiar and comforting.On my left side, where the second axe used to be, I now hung the thin saber instead — lightweight, flexible.Good reach. And my weird dagger to the front.

  I felt weird.Off-balance.Wrong.

  But I’d get used to it.Had to.

  As for the stump of my left arm...I didn’t know what the hell I was gonna do with it.Maybe in time, with a good enough prosthetic, I could make it something useful.But for now, it just hung there like a bitter reminder.Dead weight.

  I tightened the belt across my waist and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

  "Well this ain't goin anywhere," I muttered to nobody.

  I took one of the wheelbarrows and filled it with all the extra gear I wouldn’t use, leaving out the battered axe.Not that I didn’t try — but the old dwarf had flat-out refused to buy that thing before, muttering something about not wanting "that kind of cursed metal" anywhere near his shop.

  I strapped a leather belt around my neck and slung the wheelbarrow's left handle into it, leaving my good hand free to steer the squeaky bastard down the streets.It wasn’t graceful, but it worked. Like most of my plans.

  When I finally rolled up to the smithy, the dwarf was sitting outside, puffing on a pipe long enough to pole vault with.He gave me a look — somewhere between pity and amusement.

  "What happened to your arm?" he asked, smoke curling from his nostrils like an angry bull.

  "Nothing much," I said, pretending like I wasn’t dragging my haul like a one-armed bandit."Shield got turned into wood chips. Had to improvise."

  He grunted, tapping his pipe against his boot to knock the ash out."You wouldn't happen to offer refunds by any chance?" I added, half-joking.

  The dwarf let out a laugh that sounded more like a dry cough.

  "A shield stopping a blow is what it’s supposed to do, lad. From where I’m standing, it did its job — you’re still breathing, aren't ya?"

  He started poking through the pile, thick fingers surprisingly nimble for someone built like a stone wall.

  "But," he said, voice softening just a little, "I’ll give you a better price today. Call it a token of appreciation for your continued patronage... and surviving whatever the hell you survived."

  "Deal," I said, grinning despite myself.

  He weighed and sorted the gear with a practiced eye, tossing coins into a small cloth pouch. It hit my good hand with a satisfying thunk — a little heavier than I’d expected.

  Small wins. Take 'em where you can.

  Next, I rolled my way down to the crystalmancy shop just a few buildings over.But first — priorities — I stopped at the little restaurant where Hope and I had eaten before.I wasn’t about to skip a real meal.

  This time, though, I decided to skip the steak.Trying to cut a slab of meat one-handed would've been the ultimate ego killer, and knowing me, my pride would probably get me killed one day anyway.Sausages were safer — just stab and bite.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  After filling my stomach and my soul with greasy goodness, I repeated the process at the crystalmancy shop, unloading a few enchanted odds and ends from the battlefield.Another fat pouch of coins jingled in my belt bag, making me feel just a little bit more like a walking target.

  Still, I'd need every last coin for what was coming.Travel wasn’t cheap. Surviving it was even less so.

  I wandered until I found a clockwork shop tucked into a quiet alley.The tinkerer barely looked up from his cluttered bench as I limped in, dragging my loot.

  I pitched the idea with a straight face: a "new kind of lamp" project.No questions asked — the man was too excited about the potential payday to care what I was actually planning.Perfect.

  From there, I stopped by the apothecary, picking up sulfur and saltpeter with the excuse that I was "experimenting with alchemical fertilizers" — whatever that meant.Lead and coal came easy from the blacksmith; he was too busy hammering out horseshoes to even blink at the request.

  Finally, I ordered a black powder loading kit from a different supplier entirely.Spread the orders, muddy the waters.The fewer people who could piece together what I was building, the better.Piece by piece, quietly, carefully — I was putting my future into motion.

  It took a whole damn week for the clockwork shop to finish the two flintlocks.Not that I was complaining — they turned out even better than I had hoped.

  The first was a double-barrel, half-inch smoothbore pistol.Big enough to blast grape shot into a man’s chest and send him straight to whatever gods he prayed to.

  The second was a full one-inch rifled pistol — a beast of a weapon meant to punch through armor and bone alike with a single heavy slug.

  I rigged the shotgun to ride high across my back shoulder, easy to grab with my good hand in a rush.The big pistol I strapped under my left armpit, hidden under the cloak I'd picked up earlier in the week.If the last few fights had taught me anything, it was this: I was going to lose weapons.A lot.So I might as well start every fight loaded to the teeth.

  I looked at myself in the polished steel of the armory door — a patchwork of armor and weapons, half-crippled and half-crazy.Grinned a little.

  "If I'm gonna die," I muttered to my reflection, "I'll make damn sure they remember me."

  Before i left for good Mathias handed me three thick envelopes, all sealed with heavy red wax and stamped with intricate sigils.He looked tired, like he'd aged a decade in the past week.

  "Follow the instructions carefully," he said, his voice low. "Especially this one."He tapped the letter with the black seal — a seven-pointed star wrapped in thorns.

  I raised an eyebrow. "Inquisition?" I guessed.

  He nodded grimly."That letter promises safe passage under the authority of the Holy Inquisition. No one is to check your status, no one is to touch you with magic scrying, not within the Empire or the Church lands. Abuse it and they'll hang you upside down until you piss your soul out."His words were flat. No joke this time.

  The two other letters were a little less dramatic. One for the Dean of the University in the Holy Capital.The other for an artificer named Lilith Makina — apparently someone who could help me with... well, everything.

  I tucked them carefully into the hidden pocket inside my gambeson.

  Hope still hadn't woken. Every time I sat by her side, waiting, watching the slow drip of potions into her veins, it gnawed at me.Every day that passed, the healers grew a little quieter, a little less hopeful.It twisted something deep inside my gut, something that didn't seem like it would ever quite untangle again.

  The morning of my departure, the church threw a small send-off.Well, more like an awkward gathering of a few familiar faces.Some of the younger priests, a few of the guards I'd fought alongside, even the dwarf smith showed up, grumbling about wasting time but standing there all the same.Harold had cooked up a pot of thick stew while Cassiopae passed around mugs of strong cider that tasted like apples and fire.

  Father Mathias clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder as I stood next to the carriage."You've done more here than you know, kid," he said, voice thick. "Make us proud."

  I forced a grin. "I'll try not to burn anything down. No promises, though."

  He barked a short laugh and pressed a small pouch into my good hand — heavy with coins. "Travel money. Don't lose it gambling."

  The others gave me a few rough slaps on the back, a few jokes, a few nods of respect.It wasn't a hero's parade, but it was something — and honestly, it meant more to me than I expected.

  The sun was just dragging itself over the horizon as I climbed into the carriage.The driver, a grizzled old man with a missing eye and an attitude like sour wine, clicked his tongue, and the horses jerked into motion. As we rolled east, the rising light painted the sky in fire and gold.I leaned back, breathing deep, the scent of dew, horses, and dust filling my nose and I left the buzz of the cider take me out for a nap.

  I was heading into the unknown — one-armed, half-crazy, and probably a little cursed — but for the first time in a long while, I felt free.

  We rolled through hills, forests, and endless plains for the whole damn day, the wheels creaking, the horses snorting, and the driver cursing everything from rocks to the color of the sky.At dusk, we reached a small village — no more than a hundred homes wrapped tight inside a tall wooden palisade, a deep moat dug all around it like the town had pissed off a lot of neighbors.The cart rattled to a halt outside the inn, and I clambered down with my bags, slinging them awkwardly with my makeshift sling and sheer stubbornness.

  The trader did what traders do — stuffed himself full of stew and beer until he looked ready to pop, while I tucked into a good meal of roasted chicken and bread that felt like it had been baked by a sadist.Two local musicians started up not long after — one with a violin, the other plucking a lute, their voices weaving tales of heroes and legends thick into the smoky air of the inn.

  At first, I didn't pay much attention, until I caught the name "Samael the Slayer of Giants" floating through the lyrics.Took me a minute to realize... they were singing about me.

  Except, according to them, I'd killed a fifteen-foot-tall orc armed with nothing but a pocket full of sand and a snappy comeback.They even made me taller, stronger, and somehow more handsome.

  I couldn't hold it in — I barked out a laugh so hard half the tavern stared at me.Wiping tears from my eyes, I tossed the bard a good handful of coins.If they were going to turn me into a walking myth, they might as well do it with style.

  The next morning, with the chill still clinging to the ground, we set off again.The driver grumbled less now, probably happy to be leaving a town where the inn only had two types of beer: bad and worse.

  By midafternoon, we rolled into Tretaria — a bustling port town where the air reeked of salt, fish, and the sweet smell of money changing hands.The driver, true to his word, dropped me off at the inn near the docks before vanishing into the crowd like a rat into a sewer.

  I hauled my heavy bags across the cobblestones, muttering curses under my breath.Getting used to having one arm was a pain in the ass through and through — every door, every bag, every goddamn buckle on my armor reminded me of what was gone.

  I rented a room, dumped my gear, and hit the docks looking for a ride to the Holy Capital.Took a bit of asking around — and a few silver coins slipped into the right hands — but I finally found a modest trading brig willing to take me aboard.Nothing fancy, but it would get me there.Departure was set for tomorrow morning, with the tide.

  I spent that night on the balcony of the inn, smoking one of Mathias’ gifted smokes and staring out at the endless dark sea.A new chapter was about to start.One way or another.