Two months had passed since the mess at Mine #34.
For some, the weight of the incident still lingered in the air. Like the industrial smog in the city. For Jack, it was just part of history.
Things settled into a routine for him. A dual existence split between the spectral and the solid.
Half of the night belonged to Jack Mystery. He drifted through Sapphire City. Invisible. A phantom judge in the shadows.
His patrols weren't about catching thieves or stopping brawls. He was not superhero vigilantes. His patrols were all about consequence.
He found the guilty. The ones who ducked laws. The abusers who hid in plain sight. The predators who walked free. For them, sleep offered no escape.
Jack wove himself into their dreams. Or even waking states. Crafting nightmares tailored to their specific sins.
Fear was his medium. Guilt was his canvas. He pushed, prodded, terrorized. If they broke, good. If they suffered, better.
He didn't ignore the innocent. For those who lived right, who endured hardship with grace, or simply deserved a moment of peace... He curated pleasant dreams. A gentle touch. A quiet moment of happiness in their sleep.
It was balance. His skewed version of it.
Twice. He decided to go overboard twice. His nocturnal work ended the target permanently. As he deemed them... unforgivable.
The first was a teacher. Someone respected by day, a monster by night. He had preyed on his students. And not just one or two students.
Jack had haunted him with such powerful illusion that it drove him to the point of insanity. He ended his own life. Jumping from a clock tower.
The other was a psychopathic man who kept his family imprisoned. And tortured them so badly to death. Even his tiny baby.
Jack ensured his nightmares were so vivid. So inescapable. That his heart simply stopped during the deepest terror. No witnesses. No trace. Just another death in the city. Ruled natural or accidental. Jack deemed it justified.
Jack kept doing his nightly spectral activity.
Most of his time, though, was spent in the skin of Jack Night, the human. He walked the streets as a man, albeit a large, tough one. With a Steamrune Shotgun slung over his back and handguns holstered at his hips.
He was a registered mercenary at the Mercenary Union. He took on jobs that paid coin and offered opportunities to test his gear, his skills, and his transcendent class.
He frequented the Mercenary Workshop. Incorporating 'Condensation' rune for his equipment. Tinkering with his weapons. Improving his hoverboard. Designing new devices.
Other than that, he spent hours in the Mercenary Library. Information was power. Thus, he devoured technical manuals, engineering treatises, and historical records.
He inevitably learned the 'common senses' about his class. It turned out not everyone could just integrate any rune they fancied.
Most engineers were limited. They were often only compatible with one or two types of steamrunes. Based on their inherent aptitudes or origins.
Jack, who could apparently bind any rune he encountered, was an extreme anomaly. It was something he initially didn't grasp as unusual. Just convenient.
He also learned about specific runes. His 'Fusion' rune was incredibly rare. The library's database listed only two other known individuals with that specific integration. Two characters he actually knew.
First was Lady Gemrose, the influential Vice President of the Mercenary Union itself. And Ria Odefort, the nerdy technician who calibrated O.J.'s cyborg body.
Knowing this didn't actually change anything immediately. But it was a data point. An interesting one.
Over these two months, the person he interacted the most wasn't his previous team members. But, surprisingly, it was Danny. Big Bill's younger brother.
Like his brother, Danny had a powerful physique. And, after the mess in the space crack, he now had a very capable-looking mechanical left arm. He was blunt, direct, and seemed perpetually impressed by practical, functional tech.
Their connection started simple. Danny had seen Jack's hoverboard in action in the prehistoric realm. It was fast. Stable. And Jack rode it with casual efficiency.
Danny liked it. A lot. He pestered Jack a lot. Asking about its mechanism. Wanting to build one himself.
Jack didn't see the big deal. Hover technology existed in this strange steampunk world. Although perhaps not Jack's specific design.
Steamrune Engineers incorporated the flight technology and built all sorts of odd tools.
Steam motorcycles that defied gravity slightly. Jetpacks that were more steam-powered rockets than balanced flight. Mechanical wings that were heavy, clunky, yet functional. Chaircopters that... well, they were chairs with propellers.
Jack's hoverboard was just efficient.
He didn't want to teach Danny step-by-step. He just sold him the blueprint. Danny, being Danny, didn't just build it. He used it. Everywhere.
He zipped through the streets. Performed simple aerial stunts. And generally showed off the device's capabilities.
The result was unexpected. People saw Danny flying around, looking cool and moving fast, and they wanted one. They didn't go to Danny. They came to Jack, the guy who first built it.
Suddenly, Jack was being pestered by requests, questions, and offers to buy blueprints. It was annoying. He had better things to do – like taking missions or researching esoteric runic theory.
To stop the hassle, he had simply packaged the blueprint. And sold the distribution rights to the Mercenary Union's engineering department.
Now, anyone who wanted the hoverboard had to go through the Union, pay a standardized fee, and get the official blueprint. Jack, in return, received a 20% royalty on every sale.
It was passive income. Not much. But, more importantly, it bought him peace. Danny still had his hoverboard. Still showed off. And Jack was free of the constant inquiries.
Today, Jack was heading towards the mission board. Scanning for something profitable or interesting. Danny was with him. Having finished showing off his hoverboard on the road.
They passed a temporary stall set up near the Union hall. It was simple. Just a table covered with various small, crystalline objects. A sign read:
'Tale Focusing Cores! Boost Your Craft! Essential for Upcoming Tale Mansion Event! Cheap!'
A small crowd was gathered, inspecting the cores, asking questions. They looked like polished geodes or strange, solidified emotions. Some pulsed with faint light. Others seemed dark and still.
"What's with this?" Jack asked Danny. Pointing a blunt finger at the stall. The cores looked… interesting. Like condensed concepts. Or something else entirely.
Danny glanced at the stall. "Ah, the Tale Cores. Vendors pushing stocks before the Tale Mansion opens."
"Tale Mansion?" Jack repeated. It wasn't a term he had encountered in his library research yet. Or maybe he had skimmed past it.
"Yeah!" Danny said. Shrugging his mechanical shoulder. "Big deal. Opens in three days. People need these cores apparently. To put their 'tale' in whatever they make for it."
Jack remained blank. "Put a tale... in an object? For what?"
Danny sighed, a sound that conveyed 'this is common knowledge, how do you not know this?'
"Okay, look." He explained. "Tale Mansion. It's one of the Ten Transcendent Havens for Art. The big ones. This one is the only one around Sapphire City. Hidden usually. Opens up every five years."
He continued. Explaining in his straightforward manner. "When it opens, transcendent people like us can go inside. It is full of art. All kinds. Sculptures, paintings, musical instruments, maybe even engineering builds. The key thing is, each piece is supposed to have a 'noteworthy tale' somehow woven into it. Makes the art special. More than just skill."
"Art?" Jack grunted. He wasn't an artist. He built things that served a purpose. Weapons. Tools. Conveyances. His engineering was about function, efficiency, destruction, protection.
"Right, art." Danny confirmed. "But the main reason people care? The competition. The Tale Collector from the Mansion always comes out during that open period. They accept submissions. Any artwork, any medium, as long as it has a 'tale'. They look through everything, pick three. Three best tales. Then they give the rest back."
"And the three winners?" Jack prompted.
"They get the Taleweaving Fruit," Danny stated. His tone suggested this was the important part. "It's a magical fruit. Eat it, and it improves your talent. Whatever talent you have. An engineer? Makes you a better engineer. A warrior? Better fighter."
Danny continued. "People say it can even evolve your talent, push it to the next level. Big deal for anyone trying to get stronger or better at what they do."
Jack processed this. A fruit. Improves talent. Evolves talent. Talent translated directly to capability. Capability translated directly to power.
Power was useful. Very useful. His current power set was effective, but improvement was always the goal. More power meant more effective justice. More effective survival.
His mind, which usually calculated angles for shotgun pellets or runic energy outputs, shifted focus. A competition. Based on art. Imbued with a tale.
Being intrigued didn't quite cover it. Jack felt a pragmatic pull. An almost instinctual interest in this 'Taleweaving Fruit'. It was a tangible goal, tied to something as abstract as a 'tale'.
He had plenty of tales. Brutal, dark, cautionary tales. Tales of vengeance and consequence. Tales of the rottenness lurking beneath civilized surfaces. Could he package one of those into an object built with steamrune mechanism?