I stood by the window of the Hearthside Suite, looking out at the waking city of Lastlight. The morning sun was just hitting the slate roofs, turning the dew into diamonds, but all I could see were the invoices. Breakfast? Coin. Gear? Coin. Not dying of dysentery? Surprisingly expensive.
Inside my chest, the new, reinforced Core thrummed with a steady, reassuring power—the result of Ronan's "Night Shift." We were stronger than we'd ever been. We were Awakened. We had a divine Art. And we were absolutely, completely insolvent.
'It's a logistics problem, Murphy,' Ronan's voice chimed in, sounding far too chipper for a man who had spent eight hours mentally bench-pressing the cosmos. 'We have the engine. We just need the fuel.'
'We need a miracle,' I muttered, checking the locks on the door for the third time. 'Or a winning lottery ticket. Do they have lotteries here? Or do they just draw names for who gets eaten by the local dragon?'
'No,' Ronan corrected, and I could feel a sudden, manic swell of inspiration rising from his side of our mind. It was the specific feeling of a nobleman who had just had a "brilliant" idea that was definitely going to get a peasant killed. 'We don't need luck. We need an industry.'
'Oh no,' I whispered. 'Don't say it.'
'The river!' Ronan projected, flashing an image of the sparkling water we'd seen days ago. 'Think about it! We have the clones now. Solid, tangible workers who don't tire and don't need wages. We go upstream, past the city filth. We set up a dredging line!'
He was off to the races. 'One clone digs. One clone filters the silt using the Inventory. We could strip-mine the riverbed! We'd be pulling out kilos of gold dust a day! By the end of the week, we wouldn't just be solvent; we'd be wealthy enough to fund a retinue! We could build a hospital! Restore the Sunstrider estate!'
I walked over to the table and poured a glass of water, letting him rant. He was currently mentally designing a coat of arms for our new mining corporation.
'Ronan,' I said, taking a sip. 'Stop building the orphanage for a second and listen to me.'
'You lack vision, Murphy,' he scoffed. 'It's a perfect loop.'
'It's a perfect death trap,' I corrected, setting the glass down. 'You're thinking like a Lord again. Think like a Rat.' I held up a finger. 'Problem one: The Fence. Let's say we actually get a kilo of twenty-two karat gold dust. Where do we take it? That reptilian guy in the market?'
'He seemed… eager for business,' Ronan offered, though his confidence wavered.
'He was eager to rob us,' I said flatly. 'If we walk in there with a pouch of dust, he rips us off. If we walk in there with a kilo, he locks the door, signals his three biggest friends, and cuts our throats in the back room. You can't flood a black market with high-grade bullion without people asking where you got it. And when they find out we don't have a mercenary company to back us up? We're just loot drops.'
Ronan fell silent. He understood war, but he didn't understand crime. To him, gold was currency. To me, unaccompanied gold was a death sentence.
'Problem two,' I continued, ticking off a second finger. 'The Wilds. You want to send a clone upstream, right? Away from the city walls? Into the unchecked wilderness? What actually lives out there, Ronan? Because I'm guessing it's not fluffy bunnies.'
'River Drakes,' Ronan admitted reluctantly. 'And perhaps the occasional Moss-Bear near the tree line.'
'Right. Murder-Lizards and Bears made of rock,' I nodded. 'Our Core is Light Blue, Ronan. It's barely an AA battery. That clone might be solid, but it's not invincible. Out there? It snaps like a dry twig. And since we already established last night that a destroyed clone dissolves its mana into the atmosphere, we'd be burning thirty per cent of our soul just to feed the wildlife.'
I felt his grand vision deflate. The hospital vanished. The banners furled.
'So…' he projected, his voice sullen. 'No gold mine?'
'No gold mine,' I confirmed. 'Not until we're strong enough to defend it, and smart enough to launder it.'
There was a long pause in our shared mind. I could feel Ronan shuffling through his mental catalogue of Ways to Make Money Honourably.
'Then there's only one viable option,' he stated, his tone shifting from manic to pragmatic. 'The Adventurer's Guild.'
I paused, leaning against the heavy oak dresser. 'The Guild?'
'It makes sense, Murphy. They pay for results. They offer bounties on pests and monsters. It's legitimate work. No fences. No questions. We avoid the high-profile jobs. We don't hunt the dragons or the bandits. We don't join parties. We take the jobs the heroes ignore. The slimes. The giant rats. The sewer maintenance. We become the janitors of the dungeon world.'
I stopped pacing. Janitors. Nobody looks at the janitor. Nobody asks the guy covered in sewer muck for his autobiography.
'We work alone?' I asked.
'Strictly solo,' Ronan promised. 'No teams. No drinking buddies. Just us, the clones, and the job. We get in, we get the coin, we get out. We hide in plain sight.'
I weighed it. Starvation, getting eaten by a Drake, or becoming a registered, sewage-covered nobody. It wasn't glamorous, but it felt… manageable.
'Alright,' I sighed, grabbing my belt and checking the dagger at my hip. 'The janitor strategy. I can live with that. But the moment someone starts asking questions about my background, we bail. Understood?'
'Understood. Now, let's go to work.'
'Right,' I said, dropping onto the bed. 'Game plan. The body stays here. The clone goes out. If the clone gets eaten by a rat, we lose the mana investment, but my actual throat remains uncut. Agreed?'
'Agreed,' Ronan said. 'We must protect the vessel.'
'Good. So here's the play,' I projected, picturing the strategy clearly. 'You're the fighter. You've got the muscle memory, the sword skills, and the terrifying enthusiasm for violence. So, you take the clone out. We stay here, keep the body safe, and meditate to boost the mana levels.'
I waited for his agreement. It was the obvious tactical choice. Instead, I got silence.
'Ronan?'
'I can't do that, Murphy,' he said finally.
I blinked. 'What do you mean you can't? You're a Paladin. Swinging a sword is your whole personality.'
'I mean, I can't create clones,' he corrected. 'We've been down this road. Have you forgotten the desert?'
The memory hit me—a dull, repetitive ache from our years in the wasteland. Every day, for weeks, we had tried. I would sit in the dust, relax every muscle, and try to hand him the keys. Move the arm. Just wiggle a finger. And for ten years, nothing happened.
'That was different,' I argued. 'That was you trying to move my physical body. We are talking about accessing the Art.'
'The Core empowers the body, Murphy, not the soul's agency,' Ronan countered, his tone firm, almost defensive. 'I'm... distinct. I'm a guest in this house. I can't just seize the controls because we installed an engine.'
'But you controlled the meditation!' I shot back. 'Last night! You drove the mana flow perfectly.'
'That was internal,' he argued. 'Directing energy is one thing. Triggering the Art? That takes a connection I don't have.'
I frowned. He sounded certain. Resigned, even. But something about it didn't sit right. It sounded like an excuse.
'So what?' I asked, frustration creeping into my voice. 'We have a magic remote-controlled robot, but only the guy with zero combat training is allowed to hold the controller? That's your pitch? I have to go out there and flail around with a sword while you offer commentary?'
'I can guide you,' Ronan offered. 'I can tell you where to strike. Like a coach.'
'A backseat driver,' I muttered. 'No, you can't. The clone has a single mind. It's just me in there. If I panic, your advice won't stop me from dying.' I stood up and paced. 'No. I don't buy it.'
'Murphy—'
'The rules have changed, Ronan. We have a Core now. We have a divine Art. You aren't just a voice anymore; you're half the battery. You're scared it won't work. I get it. Failure sucks. But we can't afford to leave your skills on the bench just because you have performance anxiety.'
'It's not anxiety,' he snapped, a flash of genuine irritation breaking through. 'It's reality.'
'Then prove it,' I challenged. 'Try. Just once. If the clone just stands there and drools, fine. I'll do the heavy lifting. But you have to try.'
The silence returned, stretching out. Finally, he let out a mental sigh that sounded like a gust of wind through a tomb.
'Fine,' he relented. 'But when it fails, you drop it.'
'Deal. Show me what you've got, Paladin.'
I could feel Ronan pull on our mana. It wasn't the usual physical tug I felt when I did it; it was an internal shift, like someone reaching past me to grab the steering wheel. The air shimmered, twisted, and then knit together.
A moment later, a perfect copy of me stood at the foot of the bed, staring blankly at the wall.
For a long, heavy second, nothing happened. The clone just stood there.
'Ronan?' I projected. 'Did it work? Is that you?'
In my mind, I felt a wave of genuine, profound shock radiating from Ronan's side of our shared soul.
'I…' Ronan's mental voice stuttered. 'I felt the mana leave. I felt the Art engage. But…'
Suddenly, the clone blinked. It looked down at its hands—my hands—flexing the fingers slowly. It rolled its shoulders, a sharp crack echoing in the quiet room. Then, the clone looked up. It didn't have my usual slouch or the guarded, paranoid squint I'd perfected over centuries. Its posture was erect, shoulders back, chin lifted.
"Murphy," the clone said aloud.
The sound of my own voice, spoken by someone else standing three feet away, was unnerving. It wasn't the chaotic, fast-talking cadence I used. It was calm. Resonant.
"It's me," the clone said, a slow smile spreading across its face.
'Holy shit,' I breathed. 'You're actually doing it.'
"Move," I commanded. "Prove it's not just a meat-puppet."
The Ronan-Clone nodded. He walked toward the table with a fluid, predatory grace that made my scrawny frame look like a coiled spring. He picked up the jagged, notch-filled longsword I'd bought from the scrap bin. In my hands, it was a heavy, unbalanced piece of junk. In his, it looked like a feather.
Swish-Clack-Hiss.
The blade cut the air in a complex figure-eight pattern. He pivoted, lunged, and stopped the tip of the blade a millimetre from the bedpost. He recovered instantly, spinning the sword into a reverse grip.
"The muscle memory is faint," the clone said, critiquing himself instantly. "And the balance on this blade is atrocious. It pulls to the left. But… I can work with this."
'By the Light,' Ronan's mental voice whispered from within. 'Murphy… I can fight this way.'
I grinned. All I saw was the solution to every problem we had.
"You sure can, buddy," I said. "Welcome to the team. Now, dispel that thing."
"Understood."
It dissolved instantly. CLANG. The heavy iron sword dropped to the floorboards. I waited for the rush of memory—the sensation of the swing—to snap into my brain like it did when my own clones dispelled.
Nothing happened.
'Ronan?' I asked. 'I didn't get the feedback. Did you?'
'I did,' Ronan replied, breathless. 'The weight of the steel… the vibration… I've got it all.'
I rubbed my chin. 'So… the memories return to the mind that formed them. Since that construct was an extension of your consciousness, the experience returned to you.'
'Looks like it.'
'Okay,' I said. 'So you can fight. That's huge. But we have a resource bottleneck. Sending a clone out to fight burns mana. It's an upfront investment.'
'Thirty per cent,' Ronan confirmed. 'A stable construct needs significant structural integrity.'
'Right. Thirty per cent. We can only field three of these guys at once. But here is the question: What happens if a Bear eats one?'
'We lose the mana,' Ronan said grimly. 'We proved that last night during the expansion phase. If the vessel shatters violently, the Aether dissipates. It's a sunk cost. Every combat encounter is a gamble.'
'I can mitigate the risk,' Ronan offered. 'While I'm projecting the clone, I can maintain a meditative state in this body. I can trickle-charge our reserves.'
'Trickle-charge isn't enough,' I argued. 'You're filling a bucket with a thimble while risking the whole bucket on a coin toss. We need a way to generate mana faster than we risk it.'
I looked at the empty air where the clone had been. An idea, bizarre and probably impossible, flickered in my mind.
'Ronan,' I projected slowly. 'That clone… it has your mind in it, right? And you know how to meditate.'
'I do.'
'So… why can't the clone meditate?'
There was a stunned pause.
'Meditate?' Ronan repeated. 'Murphy, the Echo is a construct made of fuel. It burns energy just to exist. Asking it to gather more fuel is like asking a fire to chop wood.'
'Does it?' I pressed. 'Or does it just sound weird? Look, if the clone has a connection to our Soul, shouldn't it be able to pull Aether from the air? Even if it burns energy to exist, if it gathers faster than it burns... that's a net profit, right?'
'It… theoretically…' Ronan's voice trailed off. 'If the intake beats the metabolic cost…'
'Only one way to find out. Spin him up again.'
I felt the heavy tug in my chest as Ronan accessed the Art. The Ronan-Clone materialised again. It didn't reach for the sword. It sat down on the rug in a perfect lotus position.
"The Solar Crucible," the Clone said aloud.
The Clone closed its eyes. I checked my internal gauge. For ten minutes, nothing happened.
'It's not working,' I whispered. 'He's just burning fuel.'
'Wait,' Ronan commanded. 'The flow is reversing. He's stabilising.'
I watched the Clone. The faint, wavering distortion of heat around its body began to tighten.
'The margin is thin,' Ronan announced. 'He's gaining perhaps... twenty per cent an hour over his maintenance cost. It's not a waterfall, Murphy. It's a trickle.'
'A trickle adds up,' I said. 'So why stop at one? If we can generate a profit, we should scale the operation immediately. We create an army of batteries.'
'Scale it?' Ronan mused. 'The Hex-Grid.' He projected a mental diagram. 'We use the surplus to cast more clones. We create a massive Mana-Farm. We could send an entire squad to the sewers while keeping a dozen batteries here!'
'Infinite ammo,' I said. 'Do it.'
We spent the next three hours in the boring "Fill Phase." Ronan created three clones. They sat in a circle, breathing in unison. Slowly, their internal reservoirs topped off.
'They're full,' Ronan announced. 'Dispel Clone One.'
POP.
The mana rushed back into me. I gasped as the Core swelled to 100% capacity.
'Excellent. Now, summon Clone Four.'
I felt Ronan push the mana. Nothing happened.
'Again,' Ronan grunted. He pushed harder.
This time, I felt it. A sharp, mental shear, like trying to plug a fourth appliance into a socket that only had three holes.
'Gah!' I clutched my head. 'Stop! My head feels like it's splitting!'
Ronan retreated instantly.
'A ceiling,' Ronan murmured. 'The Core Rank. A Light Blue Core can support the density of three independent consciousness threads. No more.'
'So no army?'
'No army. Three is the hard cap.'
He paused, re-drawing the strategy map. 'Then we need a rotation. Slot 1: The Original Body. Slot 2: Clone Alpha (Battery). Slot 3: Clone Beta (Fighter). Slot 4: Clone Gamma (Fighter).'
'Wait,' I said. 'If we keep one here as a Battery… that means we can only send two out to fight.'
'Right. The Battery Clone stays here, filling up. If a sewer clone is destroyed and its mana lost, we dispel the Battery Clone to refill the Original Body instantly.'
'A dedicated spare tyre,' I mused. 'I like it.'
'So, here's the roster for the Away Team,' Ronan said. 'I'll create the two combat units. You'll stay here in the Original Body, monitoring the perimeter and managing the Battery.'
I stared at the diagram. I looked at "Slot 1." Then I looked at the door.
'Wait a minute,' I said. 'So… I sit here? In the room? Watching you meditate while two of you go have an adventure?'
'You stay safe, Murphy. You're the Safety Officer.'
'Watch the door?!' I exploded. 'There's a dresser in front of the door, Ronan! I am not sitting in a dark room for eight hours staring at the wallpaper.'
'It's the most efficient—'
'Screw efficiency!' I snapped. 'I need input, Ronan. Even if I'm physically stuck on this bed, if I send a clone, I get the memories back when it pops. I get the highlights reel. It's better than eight hours of sensory deprivation.'
'You want to experience the sensation of dying in a sewer to alleviate boredom?' Ronan asked, his mental tone horrified.
'I want to experience something,' I corrected. 'It's like pay-per-view. It keeps the mind active. But more importantly,' I tapped my temple, 'it's about being blind. If your clone walks into an ambush, you won't know until it's too late. You're a reactive fighter. You need a Radar.'
'The Danger Sense,' I pressed. 'My clones have it too, right?'
'Theoretically.'
'Then you need me. I'm not the liability. I walk in front. I tell you where the ambush is before it happens. We clear the tunnels in half the time.'
Ronan hesitated. He wanted to protect me, but he couldn't argue with the tactical advantage.
'And,' I added, 'if I have to sit in this room doing absolutely nothing—without even the promise of a memory update to look forward to—I'm going to start singing. Loudly. In your head. And I know all the verses to "The Song That Never Ends."'
Ronan winced. 'Fine. The tactical advantage outweighs the risk. Away Team: One Ronan-Clone. One Murphy-Clone.'
'That,' I said, 'is a plan.'
'Spinning up,' Ronan announced.
I felt the drain. It wasn't painful, just a hollow lightness in the chest as sixty per cent of our mana left the building. A Ronan-Clone and a Murphy-Clone appeared. We topped them off, then Ronan dispelled the Battery to refill the tank.
'We're fully charged,' Ronan said. 'Two fighters in the field, one full battery in the chamber.'
I closed my eyes. The transition was a lurch of vertigo. One moment, I was on the bed; the next, I was standing on the rug.
'Move out,' the Ronan-Clone commanded.
We slipped out into the alleyway. The run to the sewers took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of my internal timer ticking down without a single copper coin earned.
'We've burned eight per cent of our combat time just commuting,' I grumbled as we pried open the grate to the Lower Sewers.
The sewers were exactly as charming as I remembered. The smell of rot and stale magic hit us instantly.
'Form up,' Ronan ordered. 'I'll take point.'
We moved deeper. The "Run Back" terrified me. The cost of death wasn't pain; it was the clock. Every mistake bled us dry of time. The tunnels grew tighter, rusted iron replacing stone.
Buzz.
'Stop,' I hissed. 'Movement. Ceiling. Three metres ahead.'
Ronan froze. A Green Slime dropped from the pipes, aiming for his head. Ronan stepped back, let it splatter, and crunched the nucleus with his sword before it could reform.
'Clean kill,' Ronan noted. 'Secure the core.'
I stepped forward. My eyes were fixed on the prize.
SPLASH.
My boot hit a patch of purple grease on the walkway. Ronan called it "Slick-Weed." I called it a design flaw. My feet went out from under me.
CRACK.
I slammed back-first onto the stone. The impact wasn't just pain; it was a structural failure. The fragile mana-construct couldn't sustain the sudden trauma.
POP.
I gasped, my real eyes snapping open on the bed.
'Report,' Ronan demanded.
'I slipped,' I admitted, face heating up. 'Slick-Weed. The clone popped.'
'You… slipped?'
'It was slippery! I'm going back in.'
I checked our gauge. 'That's thirty per cent gone. Evaporated.'
'Summon the replacement,' Ronan said grimly. 'But if you die again, we have to drain the Battery Clone.'
I groaned, summoned the replacement, and started running. By the time I reached the sewer again, the Ronan-Clone was leaning against a wall, cleaning his nails.
'Nice of you to join us,' he deadpanned.
'Shut up. Let's farm.'
We pushed deeper. We found a cluster of acidic slimes near an overflow valve.
'Ambush!' I yelled. 'Right flank!'
A slime lunged, spraying a jet of yellow bile. I tried to dodge. My mind screamed move, but my reflexes were still stuck in 'civilian mode'. I wasn't a paladin. I didn't have a century of combat drills wired into my nerves. I was just a guy trying to sidestep a bullet, and I wasn't fast enough.
The acid hit my chest. HISSS. The mana shell dissolved.
POP.
I woke up on the bed again.
'Damn it!' I screamed. 'Acid. I saw it coming, but I couldn't move fast enough. I'm useless in there.'
'We're burning daylight, Murphy,' Ronan noted. 'Summon the last one. One more death and we're out of ammo.'
I summoned the third clone and ran back. I was furious. The inefficiency was maddening.
'I can't dodge,' I reported, breathless. 'I don't have your reflexes.'
'Then don't dodge,' Ronan suggested. 'You've got a hole in reality attached to your soul. Use it.'
We found another slime. It sprayed.
'Phase!' Ronan barked.
I didn't move. I focused on the patch of skin the acid was about to hit. I visualised the Inventory portal opening right there.
Flicker.
The portal opened for a microsecond. The acid passed through my shoulder as if I were a ghost, vanishing into the void. My arm flickered, translucent, then solidified.
'Got it,' I grinned.
The grind settled into a rhythm. Detect. Engage. Phase. Loot.
With thirty minutes left, we found it. A massive domed chamber blocked by a Slime Coalescence—a knot of fused slimes pulsating with green light.
'A Coalescence,' Ronan noted. 'Most adventurers avoid these. The creature maintains a layer of Aether around the cores. The moment it dies, the seal breaks, and the digestive acid dissolves the loot instantly. You can't harvest fast enough.'
I grinned. 'Sounds like a market inefficiency.'
'We have to time this perfectly. I kill it. You capture the carcass the microsecond the spark fades, before the acid eats the prize.'
'I'm ready. Distract it.'
Ronan charged, drawing the aggro. The monster surged toward him. I flanked it, sprinting toward the pulsating mass.
'NOW!' Ronan shouted.
He drove the sword into the nucleus. The inner light died. The jelly began to hiss, turning corrosive.
'Inventory!' I screamed.
I opened the portal wide and pulled. SCHLUCK. The entire massive corpse was sucked violently into the void. Inside the Inventory, time stopped. The acid froze.
'Sort,' I commanded.
I separated the cores from the sludge. Five pristine spheres.
'Five pristine cores,' I breathed. 'In one go.'
'We're rich,' the Ronan-Clone agreed. 'Now dispel. We've got five minutes before we dissolve.'
POP.
I collapsed onto the rug in my real body, drenched in sweat. I reached into the inventory and pulled out five glowing, perfect cores.
'We did it,' I wheezed. 'Now let's pay the rent.'