The Artisans didn't have a headquarters in the traditional sense. There was no central tower flying their banner, no official council chamber with a crest on the wall. Unlike most of the other Groups in the castle, who had each carved out their own little territory—staking their claim over this ruined tower or that decaying hall in strategic positions —the Artisans operated more like a creeping tide. Their presence seeped into every corner of the castle's infrastructure, spreading wherever there was space to work and something to create.
They didn't need walls to define them. Their domain was where the tools were.
Still, if someone absolutely insisted that Sunny name a gathering place—a place the Artisans might consider a kind of de facto hub—he could point to two spots.
The first was the forge. Or rather, *the* forge and leatherworking station. It had been built into the far leftmost edge of the castle's towering outer walls, a place where fire and noise ruled the day. It wasn't much to look at from a distance—just smoke, heat, and stone—but it was one of the busiest places in the whole castle.
This was where most of the smiths and craftspeople worked—hammering, cutting, shaping. Even with the Spell handing out enchanted gear like candy on a festival day, people still needed armor and weapons made by mortal hands. Not everyone got lucky with what the Spell gave them, and not everyone trusted its generosity to last. Especially not here, in the Forgotten Shore, where even the air felt like it could betray you.
And besides, with access to materials like they had now… who *wouldn't* want to try?
Between the routine supply of Fallen creatures and the rare prize of Cursed Heralds, the Artisans had a literal mountain of high-quality corpses to draw from. Scales like steel, sinew tough as braided rope, bones that could be forged into weapons harder than iron. It wasn't just about craftsmanship—it was about material. With the right pieces, even a basic spear could outperform a Second Tier Awakened Memory. No frills, no secret enchantments—just a brutally sharp edge and armor that could take a hit from a Awakend Demon without crumpling.
The forge itself was overseen by one of the two so-called "enchanters"—a young man in his mid-twenties, whose Aspect allowed him to permanently heat objects. Sunny had never bothered to learn his name. Probably should have, in hindsight. The guy was apparently some kind of prodigy, but Sunny mostly just thought of him as "that walking furnace."
That would've been fine if he or Kai actually knew what the man looked like. Unfortunately, they didn't.
Which was a problem, considering the two of them were currently dragging four overstuffed backpacks—each filled to bursting with severed limbs, gnarled carapaces, and blood-soaked bits of monster bones—right into the heart of the forge.
Normally, this kind of delivery would've been handled by Harus. The Hunchback weirdly *enjoyed* ferrying around sacks of gore. But with everyone busy preparing for the tournament, Harus had his hands full, and Sunny figured it made more sense to just handle it himself.
And so he and Kai stood there, ankle-deep in soot, surrounded by people who *definitely* looked like they knew what they were doing… and had absolutely no idea who they were supposed to hand the cargo off to.
So, naturally, they defaulted to the second enchanter.
Sasha.
Apparently, Gemma had taken an interest in Sasha's explosive talent—literally—and had pulled her under the wing of the Artisans. Sunny wasn't entirely sure if the girl was being trained, tested, or just kept under supervision so she didn't accidentally level part of the castle, but whatever the case, she was *there*. And most importantly, she was *recognizable*.
The moment they spotted her hovering nervously near one of the side worktables, they made a beeline in her direction.
"Hey, Sasha," Sunny said casually, before unceremoniously dropping nearly two tons of monster meat and jagged body parts at her feet.
The poor girl squeaked and immediately turned a brilliant shade of red, her mouth working uselessly like she was trying to apologize or object or both. Kai, ever the gentleman, offered a smooth apology for the unexpected delivery, but she barely managed to respond—eyes wide, face flushed, completely overwhelmed.
Sunny gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"You'll be fine," he said, deadpan. "Don't blow anything up."
And with that, they left her to figure out what the hell to do with a fresh pile of Fallen corpses.
With one errand done, Sunny and Kai turned toward the second likely gathering place of the Artisans.
The Glass Gardens.
Specifically—*Kido's* gardens.
If the forge was the Artisans' beating heart, then the garden were its brain. Or maybe its weird, leafy soul. Either way, it was where things got... stranger.
'*'
The Glass Gardens were a miracle of madness.
Or maybe madness made manifest.
Towering domes of nothing but curved glass, each vast enough to house a family of six and their livestock, rose from the castle's western edge like fossilized bubbles. Sunlight—when there was any—poured in through the crystalline arches, scattering into fractals of soft light, while even in dimmer weather, the structures retained a strange, ethereal glow. They were beautiful. Fragile-looking. Out of place.
At first, Sunny had assumed the gardens were practical—designed to provide fruit and vegetables to the castle's residents, especially the kind not in season. That was still true, to an extent.
But over time, their original purpose had been… repurposed.
Now, they were Kido's kingdom. A jungle of glass and miracle crops under the rule of a mad genius in a lab coat and garden boots.
Kido was one of those people who made reality bend to accommodate their delusions. It just so happened that her delusions fed hundreds of Sleepers. She could design plants from scratch. Not just crossbreeding or splicing genes—she created entirely new species as easily as others doodled on napkins. Some were modeled after crops from the waking world. Others were completely original. Vines that produced flesh. Tubers that grew in metal-rich soil. Trees that filtered poison from water.
But the fungi—that had been Gemma's fault.
Sunny still remembered when the big oaf had come striding out of the Exhibition for the moonlight shard, proudly cradling a single, faintly glowing mushroom like it was some kind of rare gemstone.
"I thought Kido would love this," he'd said.
He'd been right.
Kido hadn't just loved it—she'd gone absolutely feral. Within a week, she'd cultivated a colony of the things and modified them until they no longer even resembled the original. Now the bioluminescent mushrooms came in every conceivable color, pattern, and size. They glowed bright enough to light entire corridors, pulsed in rhythm with wind currents, and some even changed hue based on nearby motion.
She'd used them to line the walls of the castle. Turned them into lanterns, signal markers, even ceiling panels. The main Glass Garden was her personal testing chamber, and it glowed like a stained-glass cathedral turned inside out.
Kai, walking beside Sunny with their latest delivery, stopped short as they entered the garden. His breath caught in his throat.
"…Oh. Oh."
That was about the extent of his vocabulary for the first thirty seconds.
Sunless didn't say anything. He just crossed his arms and watched the expression shift across Kai's face—shock, wonder, appreciation, and finally… plotting. You could practically hear the mental sewing machine starting up.
"Say, Sunny," Kai murmured finally, voice like silk and curiosity rolled into one. "Do you think it'd be possible to dye armor with this stuff? I mean… while keeping the glow?"
Sunny didn't even blink. "That's kind of why we're here. Besides the delivery."
Kai raised both perfectly shaped eyebrows. "Really? You just don't seem like the radiant type, that's all. I always thought gloomy colors were more your thing—black, gray, vaguely threatening shades of maroon"
"You're not wrong," Sunny admitted, lips twitching faintly. "Black's still my color. But you'll see."
And then Kido arrived.
She stormed toward them down the glowing pathway, red hair pulled back in a frizzy knot, wearing her usual stained brown leather coat and mismatched boots. Taller than Sunny by at least a head, she moved with the manic energy of someone who had long since stopped needing sleep—or permission.
She didn't waste time on hellos. "Do you have it?"
Sunny barely sighed as he summoned [Mother's Maw] with a shimmer of light. The great alligator skull yawned open midair, and from its jaws spilled a cascade of plump, essence-rich Prince's Fruit. The strange, glimmering produce piled at Kido's feet in reds, blues, even a few that shimmered with gold veins.
Her eyes sparkled like a child seeing candy for the first time.
But when she lunged, Sunny's hand came up.
"Do you have my set?"
She blinked at him, impatient. "Yeah, yeah, it's in the back!"
With that, she yanked the fruit from [Mother's Maw] and spun away, practically skipping down the glowing path with manic delight, muttering to herself about spores, voltage, and photosynthetic circuit chains.
Kai stared after her. "She's… spirited."
"That's one word," Sunny muttered.
Truthfully, he preferred it this way. Kido's madness had a kind of direction to it, and that made her easy to deal with—provided you fed her obsession. Prince's Fruit worked better than any bribe. Besides, it made Gemma happy. A happy Gemma meant obedient men. And obedient men were less likely to cause problems.
It was true. Prince's Fruit worked better than soul shards, at least for Kido. Especially now that she'd figured out how to make other plants absorb and use essence like batteries. His spies had whispered that she'd even gotten one to generate electricity after feeding it fruit extract. It was enough to make any self-respecting paranoid warlord giddy .
Eventually, Kido returned dragging a heavy crate behind her, filled with ink jars, coils of sterilized wire, and a scattering of bone and metal needles. Sunny had asked for a basic tattooing set weeks ago—at first, just to mask the true origin of [Serpent]. A little obfuscation. A fake brand.
That had been the plan.
But that plan had kind of… spiraled. Word had gotten out, curiosity had turned into genuine interest, and now tattoos were going to be a Thing in the castle.
He popped the crate open and checked the contents. Ink jars—some normal, some glowing faintly. Pigments in shimmering green, hot pink, ghost-blue. Some were clearly bioluminescent, swimming with little flecks of light like bottled stars. And most importantly a set of needles.
Kai leaned in, wide-eyed.
"Sunny," he said, voice low and awed. "I need this."
Sunny shot him a flat look. "For your armor?"
Kai grinned. "No. For fashion."
Sunny rolled his eyes.
But even he couldn't deny—it was beautiful. Terrifying, volatile, impractical… but beautiful.
And somehow, in this ridiculous glowing jungle of glass and madness, it kind of fit.
"If someone paint is left over sure. I don't mind "
With this they made their way to the Memory shop.
'*'
Kai seemed rather enamored with his new discovery.
He crouched beside the crate of ink and tools like it was some kind of sacred relic, fingers hovering over a glimmering bioluminescent paint jar without quite touching it. His eyes sparkled with wonder—something like childlike fascination, the kind that hadn't been dulled by fame or years of stadiums screaming his name.
Then he turned to Sunny, hesitant but sincere.
"Um… if you don't mind me asking, Sunny…" Kai gestured delicately toward the bundled needles, coils of sterilized thread, and little bowls of thick pigment. "Do you actually *know* how to use these?"
He wasn't being judgmental—his tone was too soft, too careful. He just looked worried. Genuinely worried. Like he was concerned Sunny might accidentally jab someone in the spine and give them a permanent air allergy or something. But more than that, there was genuine interest in his eyes. A curiosity for his friend, tucked under his careful concern.
Sunny didn't even glance up from the crate. He just replied with a shrug, calm and flat as a deadpan line in a war journal.
"Yeah. I learned how to tattoo freehand during one of our money laundering schemes."
He said it like someone might mention learning to knit in boarding school.
Kai blinked. "I—I'm sorry, *what*?"
"I was fourteen," Sunny continued, examining a bone needle with a critical eye. "You ever try funneling black-market credits through a fake tattoo parlor? Hipster type things are perfect for that sort of thing. Irregular working hours. No fixed price range. Lots of cash, no questions asked. Perfect front."
Kai slowly sat back on his heels, blinking as though Sunny had just told him he used to juggle chainsaws for spare change.
"…I used to get paid to pretend I was a vampire on stage," he said eventually, as if trying to contribute something relatable. "We had this choreography with fake blood and smoke machines. My manager said it was good for 'brand versatility.'"
Sunny gave him a look. "So we both committed performance-based fraud."
"Mine came with backup dancers!"
Sunny arched a brow. "Mine came with tax evasion."
Kai laughed, a soft, melodic sound that lit up his whole face. He shook his head and leaned forward again, this time with a little more trust in his posture.
"I can't tell if that makes me feel better or worse," he said, still smiling. "But… you really do know how to do it? Like, the whole thing? Ink and design and all?"
Sunny rolled one shoulder, fishing a little pot of dark gray pigment from the bottom of the crate. "I mean, I'm not gonna win awards, but yeah. Lined a bunch of scumbags back in the day. It's all about pressure control and muscle memory."
Kai glanced between him and the ink with a strangely intense expression. "Could you—like, would you maybe teach me sometime? Not for laundering! Just, I dunno. It's kind of… beautiful."
That made Sunny pause for a fraction of a second. Just a tiny hitch in the way he closed the crate lid.
Then he nodded once. "If you want."
Kai beamed. "Thank you."
Sunny didn't say anything else. He just stood, hoisting the crate under one arm.
But there was something lighter in the air now. Not quite comfort. Not quite ease. But something warmer than silence.
And that was more than enough.