It’s not hard to guess where ‘big’ lives when you get near it, it’s the only house that looks like a manor. The front doors are wide open and no one is guarding it.
“Come in, Nalu.” a booming voice comes from inside. Does that mean I can come as well? She’s walking in already.
“You too!” ok I get it. How does he even see us?
It smells nice inside the large stone building, there are portraits of different looking small fur people everywhere painted on wooden boards everywhere, stacked on the ground, against the walls, hanging from the ceiling even. Another painting is currently being made in a side room with no door. Nalu leads me to a large set of stairs leading to the second floor.
‘Big’ is right here, in a large lounge, sitting in one of four expensive looking armchairs surrounding a small shiny gray table, silver maybe. The ‘Big’ in question, looks like pretty much any other one of the fur people, but one of his curly horns is broken at the halfway point, and he clearly likes eating too much, to be polite. All he’s wearing is a long, red knit scarf that just sits on his nape and shoulders then goes down in front of him to almost the ground. He’s just as tiny as Nalu and the others I’ve seen in the narrow tunnel streets. The amount of mana gathered around him is crazy.
He looks me up and down, only stopping for a second when he spots the lemon.
“What do we have here? A thief?”
That’s not exactly how I expected this to go.
“Hum, well…”
“AhAhAh! Don’t worry young man, no one here is going to blame you for cheating a gao fruit out of this old ass of a mother centipede. How did you manage that? It must be an epic tale worthy of a painting!” Gao fruit? No way, lemon is much better.
“Nothing grande really, just a lot of running and good luck.”
“Ah, I figured, you don’t look like much of a warrior, although you have a muscular body. You don’t have that kind of sharp aura. And even if you were, you wouldn’t be able to do much against the beast, not with so little mana. But don’t stand like this, have a seat.”
“Ah, Nalu, go downstairs get your portrait done by Fiya, you’re one of the last few to go, the festival is in two days, stop delaying!” I watch as the runecrafter gets unceremoniously shooed away.
“Now, now, mister blue mage.” He switched to the common language just now. Getting serious, are we? “What does an Eisure sun priest come searching for in my peaceful Golden City? We are still not selling.” Uh?
Oh the necklace! Sun people? I see. Also the place is really named the golden city? It does deserve the name, can’t argue.
“Ah, sorry, it’s a misunderstanding. I’m no priest. I only got this necklace recently, I didn’t even know what it did until I asked Nalu. She can be a witness of that.”
“Really? Can you give me this necklace then?” He sits deeper in his chair, arms crossed.
“I’d rather not, it’s not really mine in the first place, but if it takes that for you to trust me then I guess…” I start taking it off.
“Fine I believe you. Who are you then? Why did you come here?”
“Uh. It’s a long story. But essentially, Krel, the city I was in, got attacked by a bunch of flying monsters. At some point someone said the city was lost and we were going to be transferred. Next thing I know I woke up alone in a dark cavern. Wandered for a few days, things happened” I take a glance at the LEMON fruit “And I met Vehi and Nalu by chance yesterday, they led me to you. As for who I am, the name’s Arren Sapin, wandering linguist, not much to be said. Honored to meet you.”
“... Shouldn’t have doubted Nalu’s spells anyway… She wouldn’t let just anyone in… Krel is gone? Bummer, they had some good fish out there... Are you selling the Gao fruit by any chance? ”
“I don’t know much about it to be honest, but it’s saved my life on the way here, I’d rather keep it. The mana inside is pretty useful too.”
“You don’t say, young man. This is like having a self repairing crystal you can just use over and over again. The only things making it undesirable, beside the giant centipede, are its other… more dangerous attributes. They survive for a few months after being harvested, you’ll get a few seeds when it rots but no one has any clue how to grow the damn thing, look at this.” he reaches out and grabs a small chitin ‘pot’ from a shelf behind his armchair. The thing is full of small, lustrous, bright orange seeds.
“They hurt like the real thing, can’t even eat them.” He sounds more frustrated by that than knowing a whole city is gone.
“I wouldn’t risk putting that in my mouth, no. Even if I have urges to just give in and taste the fruit sometimes.”
“Hum. Wandering linguists then? Is that why you speak Odon so fluently?” So the local language is Odon… Or is that the whole race’s name? “Can you speak Venpar too?”
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“Of course.” Yeah that’s my first time earing and speaking it, it’s nice being able to talk in any language you hear just once. Makes for a good cover up story… As long as I’m not asked to read or write anything… Yeah, I might have to find something else next time. I could also stick with the whole amnesia thing but that’s not very convincing, last time was a fluke.
“Speaking of which, I’m intrigued, why does everyone but you here speak Odon so… abruptly?”
“Ah you must have learned from some old books or you would know, this is how we talk between us, the young ones under a hundred especially, we are a very straightforward race, our language reflects our honesty. Those like me, who venture outside, sometimes end up taking a liking to a more flowery speech pattern, learning from people like you.”
“I see, is Nalu’s quirk something frequent in the Odon population as well?”
“The yes thing? No, no, thank the gods no, that’s just her being her obnoxious self. Don’t try to stop her, even I couldn’t. Her affinity is linked to this so we just have to bear with it.”
“An affinity of yes?”
“That’s what she would tell you if you asked. She’s inherited the greater affinity of affirmations from my third daughter…”
“Oh, so she’s your grandchild.”
“What? No, Neia is a teacher at the orphanage. The siblings’ parents passed away a decade ago during the last great Lunar Tide. Brave couple, them both…”
“That so? I’m sorry. Yeah, that was a bad time...” I have no clue what I’m saying, at all! What in the name of the saint lemon is a great lunar tide? This man is really testing the limits of my poker face.
“Just a few weeks until the next one… Let’s hope we don’t lose anyone this time…” that’s not ominous at all, thank you old man.
“Ah yes, I’ll be long gone by then, wish you all the best. But can I stay here a few days? I think you mentioned a festival? I don’t really have any money but I can lend the le- Gao fruit for a while.”
“You don’t have to ask me, figure that out with Nalu, she’s your guarantor here and she’s old enough to handle that, older than you even. I’m just a fat lazy old man.” he picks up a book from the table “Have a good stay then, linguist mage, you will like it here. As long as you don’t hurt anyone.”
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Oh man, I’m so glad this is over. That’s what you get for lying, stories full of holes, barely covered up by the random bluffs. Better not talk to the big Odon for a while.
I have to wait for a bit while Nalu’s portrait is getting finished. The painter is quite good, especially considering the… primitive tools and pigments.
I talk about staying here for a while with Nalu while we walk back, she really likes the idea. Especially the part about being able to borrow the Gao fruit. She refuses to tell me anything about the upcoming festival, repeating “Surprise fun, yes!” whenever I ask about it. I tried asking about getting a bedroll but she avoided the question…
We enter the house, Vehi is cooking, smells delicious. There are already three plates on the table, guess he expected me back. During the meal, Vehi says we should show each other some spells, he really likes studying magic, there’s not much I can show but I do have a trick.
Taking one of the small potted plants sitting around the house, I dilate its time and make it grow a full five centimeters in one go, new fresh leaves sprouting from the blue mint looking herb. That’s got to be at least three day’s worth of growth. Vehi is quite impressed, Nalu is nodding but I don’t think she thought much of it.
It’s Vehi’s turn then, he demonstrates how he can grow temporary fish scales for protection. I act impressed but really he looks like a dried up hairy fish, I’m pushing my acting skills to the limit today. Finally, it’s Nalu’s turn.
“Up, yes!” she stands up. Me and Vehi stand up too.
“Down, yes!” we all sit down.
I don’t really get it.
Nalu’s expressions are really easy to read… She’s very frustrated?
Oh, her eyes are glowing. This is getting serious.
“FLY, YES!”
Oh. Ok. Of course you can do that… That feeling of weightlessness. This ability to float around. How dreadfully nostalgic. We’re floating around in the house. Vehi has knocked over a few things already. Nalu is doing a lot better but is still a bit clumsy. I’m a benevolent teacher. I spend the next few minutes guiding them on how to move well in zero G.
BAM
Well all fall together, it’s fine, we were floating near the ground. A certain someone just ran out of mana. She’s breathing really hard like she just ran a marathon. It looks funny. Here, some water.
“Thank… yes!”
After that they both got back to work, I lent the lemon in the centipede leg to Nalu. Let's explore town a bit now. I have some money from selling the fencing jacket’s copper thread to Nalu. It’d be best if I could buy some real clothes. I’d be interested in getting some books too. Since the siblings have a lot there must be a bookstore somewhere. If they write like they talk it shouldn’t be too hard learning the basics. I’ll take some time to start learning to read the common language too, still have those three books in my bag, one to learn how to read, I don’t even know what the other two are.
While selling my copper wire I’ve learnt a few things from Nalu, which wasn’t so easy to make sense of considering how she speaks. The usual rune wire is about 1.2mm thick, and a kilogram of copper can get you about a hundred meters of wire. This is what is used for anything bigger than a jewel, for things like the pendant I have, they use thinner strands but it’s hard to work with and not quite as durable, unless you start adding some other rarer, very expensive metals to make a copper alloy. I think she meant they use titanium, not sure. Writing all this in my notebook.
I had about a meter of copper wire from the jacket. That’s around 10grams of copper. She gave me a hundred silver coins for it. My total fortune is now 106 silver coins. It's starting to be a bit heavy, that’s a whole kilogram of silver in my bag, it makes a lot of noise too, I need to get a purse of some sort at least so they don’t keep jiggling around.
There are definitely some shops around in the streets, but I can’t read any of the signs. I’ll be asking for directions a lot today. An apron wearing, male Odon is grilling some odd shaped vegetables behind a stall, looks good. Let’s start by sampling some local cuisine before I get to the serious stuff. It’s hot and juicy, money well spent… Way further down the street, someone calls in my direction.
A Venpar?