Rainwater flowed down the cobbled streets, turning them into miniature rivers of misery as I trudged my way back to the tavern, new coins clinking at my side in a taunting melody as a plan built in my mind. I’d show those association assholes that turning me away was a mistake.
The tavern came into view after only a few minutes of walking, and I froze, uncertain of what I’d tell my wife, or how she would react. She wouldn’t leave me, that was a certainty, but there were many pressing questions as to what our future would be as of late. Sighing, I shook myself. Best to get it over with, I thought.
The moment I entered the place, sliding the door aside with quiet fury, I locked eyes with Síle as she weaved between the unusually large crowd of people gathered inside. Likely because of the rain, I realized, suddenly uncomfortable in the mass of passively pleasant personalities. Usually, the tavern was full of adventurers, thanks to our proximity to the dungeon, so I was used to aggressive self-righteous types, but politeness made me squirm with unease.
The anger raging away inside of me slowed at Síle’s expectant smile. I gave Sile the best smile I could manage as she began to step towards me, but based on how her expression faltered, I supposed I must have looked as despondent as I was beginning to feel inside. Looking away, I pushed past the crowd and hurried down the stairs to the cellar that served as our temporary lodging, a gift from her parents while we figured things out.
I breathed out a heavy sigh in the chill room as the door clanked shut behind me, my breath fogging in the last bits of light before it winked away, leaving me in darkness. Taking the matchbox from atop the hearth, I plucked out a stick and slid it across the textured side then lit the nearby oil lamp. Setting the matches aside, I moved to stand beside the old black spotted mirror set up in the corner of our room, staring into its vaguely green surface as if it held all the answers I was still struggling to scavenge from the depths of my fickle mind.
Despite the lingering chill in the air I undid the laces of my tunic and shrugged out of it, tossing aside the coin pouch as I peered intently at the black marks embedded in the skin just above my navel. The minstrel’s upside down and eyeless face staring out at me from that arcana damned card felt like a taunt, and I couldn’t keep down the flicker of anger that flitted across my features.
I tore my sight from the mirror and gazed at the small bag of coins laying on the bed beside me. In a sudden rage, I threw them at the wall, the purse’s string coming undone as it met the stone, sending coins rolling around the room in a spray of copper and silver. I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath, then set the oil lamp atop my nightstand and wrapped myself in a thick blanket of mink fur, taking in the comforting scent of my wife lingering within it as warmth worked it's way back into my body. It’d been a gift from my father for our wedding, the last such gift he’d given before his disappearance inside the dungeon at the heart of the city, and it was probably the most valuable thing my wife and I owned in more than one way.
The door opened with a click behind me, closing a moment later as my wife slipped into the room on her unnaturally quiet feet. A moment later she was slipping under the blanket beside me, pressing her shoulder against mine. I gave her a half grin and pressed back, taking her hand in mine, idly brushing the back of it in anxious circles.
“What happened?” She asked softly as if we might be overheard inside that pitifully dim excuse for a bedroom.
Without speaking I pulled away the blanket from my torso, revealing the arcana-damned mark on my skin. She gave a soft, “hmm,” and then continued on in that same gentle tone as before. “And this is a bad thing?”
“Apparently yes,” I said, the words full of more frustration than I’d fully realized I’d been harboring. “They’ve banned me from the association for life. I- they won’t let me become an adventurer. They didn’t even tell me why damn it.” Síle was silent for several heartbeats. “Well?” I asked when the anxiety became too much for me to bear.
“Well,” She began slowly, giving me a slight shrug. “Maybe this is all for the best.”
I raised a brow at her and frowned. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”
“I am!” she said quickly, resting her head in the crook of my shoulder and gently placing a kiss along the inside of my neck. “I just want you to try and view it from all possible angles. That’s all.”
“The angle is I’m fucked!” I half shouted at her, pushing out of her embrace and standing up, nearly toppling the oil lamp from the nightstand. The cold air bit at my skin as the blanket left my shoulders, but I was too upset to care. “They barred me from adventuring, Síle. What the hell am I going to do now?!”
I began pacing, running my hands through my hair as I grit my teeth. “Fuck!” I yelled. “Just… Fuck!” My voice echoed off the walls as I shouted and my wife visibly recoiled.
“First of all, get a gods’ damned grip,” she snapped. “Nothing is going to change if you just keep shouting like that. Secondly, What's wrong with just getting a normal job like everyone else? Just go to any church and get a blessing from one of the lesser arcana, people do it all that time.”
I scowled at her. “You don’t get it,” I growled. “I can’t just give in and let them win, I was born to be an adventurer, just like my father. It's what I’m meant to do. I can’t spend the rest of my life working some greedy farmer’s field or cleaning stupid dishes all day, I was meant for something more than that shit.”
“And what’s wrong with cleaning dishes? It's a fine job, and I make plenty doing it,” Síle snapped back. “In fact, if I weren’t the only one working something so ‘lowly’ as you seem to think it, then maybe we wouldn’t still be living in my mother’s basement!”
“See?” I said, gesturing towards her in exasperation, snatching up my shirt from the floor and pulling it back over my shoulders. “You just don’t get it.”
“Where are you going?” She said, standing from the bed, arms folded beneath her breasts.
“I need to clear my head,” I said, but paused at the base of the stairs and sighed as I thought about what I’d just said. Gods, this was bringing out the worst in me, I realized. “I’m sorry, Síle. I-,” I wasn’t sure what else I could say, frozen in that moment, grasping at straws that weren't even there.
“Have a good walk,” she said, storming past me. “Maybe the rain will help clear your head.”
I sighed again as I watched her go and finished tucking my shirt back into my trousers. I’d really done it this time, I thought. I glanced down at the coins scattered across the floor. It was more than I’d expected to tell the truth. Enough perhaps…
A thought began to form in my mind, joining the other idle plans I’d been forming since leaving the association. On a whim, I began gathering up the copper and silver coins, storing them back in the plain purse from the association. I left the tavern with my oil cloak pulled over my head and belted shut, avoiding my wife’s angry glare as I slipped out the common room door and back into the miserable downpour.
I let out a weary breath, taking in the earthy smell in the air as rain slid harmlessly off my cloak. I strode through the near-empty streets towards the market district, my small fortune burning a hole in my pocket. The main market itself was aimed towards visitors to the city, adventurers and tourists, and the like, so their prices were too high for my still unsubstantial funds, which is why I found myself pursuing the less reputable back-alley markets instead.
The first stop on my little shopping spree was a small instrument shack I can’t even remember the name of selling little flutes and harps at ridiculously cheap prices. Unfortunately, I was shit at playing all of them, so I quickly moved on to the next place without spending as much as a copper on anything. The second stop was Tito’s emporium of entirely functional weaponry and armor, which from the outside looked not unlike a dilapidated squatter’s residence.
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The sour note of a rusty bell chimed overhead as I entered the run-down and nondescript shop and I glanced around. Despite passing it dozens of times and hearing about it from the regular adventurers who visited the tavern, this was the first time I’d ever stepped foot inside the place.
Damp planks groaned beneath my slight weight as I walked further inside, a musty, muddy smell lingering in the air. I nearly gagged at first but managed to hold it in as I was not at all keen to upset the proprietor on our first meeting.
As I glanced around I took note of the assortment of swords, spears, axes, maces, and other weapons that were packed into narrow barrels and stacked in haphazard piles on one half of the room, none of which looked much more than serviceable to my untrained eye, but who was I to judge? The armor taking up the other half of the room appeared similar in both state of care and manner of display, but I didn’t let it dissuade me. This place came highly recommended after all, at least by those adventurers who spent most of their coin on girls, grog, and gambling. As a moldy plank gave way beneath my foot I realized that maybe, just maybe, there might be better sources of information out there.
“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” a nasal voice called from the back of the room, followed by a loud thud and incoherent cursing as what must have been a full suit of plate mail fell from a shelf.
“Would you care for some help?” I called hesitantly as I moved toward the spot of chaos.
There were a series of muttered grunts and more cursing followed by another, albeit quieter, crash, and a creature the size of a rabbit fell stumbling out from the leftmost aisle, tripping over his own long drooping ears that reminded me much of a pair of sagging palm fronds.
Ah, great, I thought to myself. A fucking grendling.
They were vile creatures, grendlings, always caught up in some criminal plot or enterprise. I suppose there are a handful of them out there doing genuine good, but this man didn’t seem to be one of them, not at first glance anyway.
I tentatively stepped forward to offer the grendling a hand up but he simply twisted on the floor, landing on his narrow hoofed feet in a display of fancy footwork that succeeded only after he tripped once more over his own overlong lopped ear. He flashed me a toothy yellow smile of shark-like teeth, the patch of skin between his nostril slits wrinkling with the expression as his yellow irised, rectangular pupilled eyes locked onto the coin purse belted at my side.
“Apologies for the wait, miss. How might I assist you today?” He asked, then licked his palm with a scaly tongue and slicked back his flat grass-like thing growing from his scalp with a three-fingered hand, the red fleshy bulbs at the end of each thick blade bobbing in the air behind him.
“You’re Tito?” I asked, taking one step back from the grendling and glancing around. There was a strange vanilla tea scent lingering in the air around him, both repelling and oddly enticing at the same moment.
“The one and only!” He said, voice a nasal symphony of unpleasantness.
“Ah, well, I’m, uh, looking for some equipment, just to get me started,” I said, letting my hand stray idly to my coin purse. For some reason he’d avoided my gaze the whole conversation, his eyes glued to the small leather pouch.
“I see,” Tito said with that sharp laconic smile. “And your blessing?”
“The minstrel,” I said nervously. It was the first thing that came to mind, and, well, my blessing was the minstrel. His gaze finally left my coin and he gave me a once-over. Faced with that goat-like stare I almost wished he’d look back at the pouch at my hip instead.
“Very well,” he said, snapping two of his fingers together. Oddly there was a rattling sound from beneath the floorboards when he did that. “Come with me. I’ve just the thing for a newbie like you.”
“I’m not a newbie,” I said, laughing nervously to myself. Stupid, I thought. That was so stupid, of course, he could tell I was familiar with this. I took a deep calming breath and felt a bit of tension I hadn’t noticed before begin to ease somewhat.
“Sure you're not,” Tito said, flashing me another of those discomforting grins over his shoulder. That one almost made me shudder for some reason. Maybe it was just how his ears dragged behind him like a thick, furry brown cape. I returned the expression to the best of my ability. “You wouldn’t mind sharing your stats with me, would you? Helps hurry the process a bit.”
“Oh, actually, I’m still waiting for my system to finish, um, what was it? Formatting,” I said.
“Mhm. Not a newbie, eh?” He said with a partial smirk in my direction and I couldn’t help blushing with embarrassment. Damn it. “No matter,” he continued as if nothing had happened. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to find something that suits you. I’m guessing you’ve got shit strength but decent dexterity, yeah?”
“That sounds right,” I said, nodding.
“Well then, I might have just the thing,” Tito said and guided me to the weapons half of the room, another faint rumbling beneath the floorboards seeming to guide the grendling about. He detoured twice, standing on the tips of his hooves to peer into various barrels before seeming to find what he was looking for. It all felt too much like a show for my taste. And what was going on with that noise beneath the floor?
With an exaggerated degree of excitement, he dragged a short stool from the end of the aisle so he could draw one of the weapons free from his barrel of choice. Honestly, most of the weapons looked more or less the same to me.
“Here you are,” he said, admiring the time-worn leather scabbard of the rapier he’d chosen for me. With one practiced motion he popped the blade out a few inches, the motion taking up almost half his wingspan at least, showing off a narrow bit of simple but not poor-quality steel. Even I could tell it wasn’t complete shit.
“Take it,” he said, holding it out for me. “See how it feels in your hand.”
Gingerly I took the weapon, avoiding Tito’s hands by taking it by the scabbard. Carefully I drew the weapon from its sheath, revealing its full length. I was immediately taken aback by the inherent airy quality of the weapon. It barely felt as if I were hefting anything at all.
Tito crossed his arms and began nodding with self-satisfaction. “It is nice, is it not?” He said with a self-important air. “Perfectly serviceable if I do say so myself.”
I gave the weapon a few practice swings and jabs, doing my best to pretend I knew what I was doing, before nodding in agreement. My father might have been an adventurer, but he’d never taught me anything about it. “How much?” I asked, sliding the weapon somewhat clumsily back into the narrow scabbard. It was impressive how closely the weapon and sheathe matched each other in size.
“One silver and six bronze,” the grendling said simply. I blinked at the exorbitant sum. That was nearly a fifth of what I’d been given in ‘compensation.’
“Ten bronze,” I offered. “I don’t have as much as you seem to think.”
Tito stroked his chin in thought, then drew a short sword breaker from the same barrel as before. “A silver and ten bronze, and I’ll throw this one in for free. Besides, based on the amount of jingling coming from that pouch of yours, you’ve more than enough for such a small sum.”
I inwardly cursed myself for being a fool. How had I forgotten that grendlings had better hearing than almost any other race? I mean, their ears were fucking huge, damn it.
“Please,” I tried, snorting as derisively as I could manage. It actually came out somewhat reasonably sounding to me. “These weapons are barely worth a full silver put together and you know it.”
Tito gave me a shrug, leaning one arm against the barrel as he began picking at something red stuck between his serrated teeth. “Put 'em back if you wish. I’m here to run a business, not a charity.”
“I’ll give you a silver and one bronze,” I offered, pulling the coins from my pouch and holding them out in the air between us.
He eyed them lazily, yawning slightly, that scaled tongue of his curling up like a snail shell inside his mouth.
“Fine,” I said, pulling out another two bronze coins and holding them up beside the others.
That terrible grin returned to split Tito’s face in two and before I could even process the grendling’s movements the coins were gone from my hand and he was somersaulting through the air. “Deal,” he declared as he landed with an undeserved amount of grace and bowed, the silver and bronze coins already out of sight. “Now for some armor!” He practically shouted that statement, his glee overly apparent. I sighed but followed after him as he scampered between the aisles to the other side of the room.
“We’ll keep it simple,” he said, not even pretending to consider any of the equipment we passed as the rumbling beneath the floor guided him forward. “Padded armor and a pack to match. Boots too. A mail coif perhaps?” He paused, ears twitching as the floor thumped a few times, then continued. “No, no. You don’t have that much left on you. Ah, here we are.”
He stopped beside a narrow armoire and began opening doors and drawers until he laid out a thick overcoat of white linen and wool, a modestly sized pack, and a well-worn pair of white leather boots to match all on the nearby counter. “These should do you just fine.”
I eyed them once, mentally shrugged, and began haggling once more. In the end, I walked away with all the equipment I needed and only four silver and a handful of bronze and copper coins left in my notably lighter pouch. It was still far more than I was used to having.
On a good day, Síle would earn only a copper’s worth in the form of fifteen iron coins, enough to buy our most basic necessities for maybe a week. That was removing the factor of tips, of course. Adventurers usually held at least a few coppers and bronze coins to spare if they were lucky.
“Please, come again,” Tito said with a bow, his hand making an unfamiliar twisting flourish in the air behind him. “And don’t forget to tell your friends and family all about our perfectly functional wares!”
“I’ll do that,” I said, my smile not as forced as one might expect. Despite his general existence, I found it hard to dislike Tito for some reason.
The door to the shop closed as I took in a deep breath of the rain fresh air and sighed contentedly. I’d almost forgotten what real air smelled like inside that musty old shop. My last stop for the day was to be simple foodstuffs, camping equipment, toiletries, and other basic stuff, but before I could make it farther than the end of the street, a box appeared in the corner of my vision.
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=System Formatting Complete=
Welcome, Mairenn Crowe, blessed of the minstrel
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