“Looks like Cormick found the Transient,” Errock said, standing over the corpse of his former crew-mate.
“And that damn’d fool died for it.” Tunkor growled. “You lot question me again and you’ll end up worse than this,” He continued, taking only one look at the corpse. He examined the scene for any major signs of battle, but couldn’t find anything helpful.
The crew gathered up Cormick’s remains, moving them outside. Tunkor sat cross-legged in the middle of the ruins, closing his eyes. Cormick’s body was covered with leaves and sticks in a sort of burial. They held a moment of silence for their fallen vrakir.
Errock crouched and jabbed a tall stick into the mound, a marker for their comrade. “He was arrogant and didn’t know his place, but he was vrakir.” Errock said. “First one I seen lost in a dozen hunts.”
The vrakir mumbled some more words to honor him, then returned to the ruins where Tunkor sat in silence. One of the vrakir was about to say something, but Errock smacked him in the chest, signaling him to be quiet. They stood in the entryway waiting to see what was going to happen.
Small wisps of fire began surrounding Tunkor as he meditated. Errock could feel his energy radiating and growing stronger. The others were almost blind to it. Tunkor continued to increase his aura, more and larger wisps surrounding him as the seconds passed. When he reached his peak, he spoke his spell.
“Tra, Nam, Nam.” Tunkor spoke the words and Errock recognized the spell from the many hunts he had been on. “Tra,” the spellword for “find” could locate an intended target, so long as they weren’t too far. Then, he enhanced it twice with “Nam,” the spellword for expand, allowing his aura to reach much further than before. This took a great deal of energy and would leave their boss mostly useless for the next hour or so, but at least they’d have their target.
As the spell completed, a wave of energy shot out for miles in all directions, then returned to its origin point just as quickly.
“Found him,” Tunkor said, wobbling to his feet. The spell had clearly taken a toll on him. “He’s at least half a day away already. If we don’t find that damned Transient before he reaches the Fort, we will have to wait until he comes back on a quest. And who knows how long that’ll take.”
The vrakir wasted no time and began following their leader through Eazewood. Tunkor’s energy slowly returned, and they were able to pick up the pace, moving quickly towards their target.
“Stop!” One of the crew yelled. A smaller vrakir, younger than the rest. This was his first job he took on away from his clan, and Tunkor hired him for this exact reason.
“You sense something, Korrel? Errock asked.
“Something big is nearby. It’s coming here, and fast.” Korrel replied, worriedly scanning their surroundings. “There!” He pointed towards an opening in the trees.
“Ya spotted me quicker than I’d have liked, little blue man!” The large, flabby man sounded jolly as he revealed himself, stepping into view from behind a tree.
Tiff stood face to face with five vrakir, holding no reservations about the fight ahead. He double-checked his quest, ensuring this looked like the right targets.
[Quest: Assassinate the Assassins]
[Slay vrakir assassin leader, Tunkor: 0/1]
[Slay vrakir assassin crew: 0/4]
[Reward: Tome of Remembrance: Brewmaster Cramill]
[Reward: Class Ascension Crystal (Tier 1)]
“Do one of you fine blue folks happen to be Tunkor?” Tiff asked, patting his belly in anticipation. He noticed one of the vrakir glance at the largest among them, all but confirming his targets.
“Our qualms are not with you.” Errock yelled back.
“Well then, we will consider it a one-way street!”
With that, Tiff charged at the vrakir.
— — —
“No, I promise it’s not a girl’s name.” Dex insisted, having fended off Princess’s playful prodding for the last several minutes.
“Alright, alright.” Princess echoed. “We need to get the hell out of here and find this Fort that big dude mentioned.”
“Agreed, but first let me check on my loot from the quest.” Dex replied. “Looks like I got a potion belt, a couple of potions, and a choice of scrolls, as you mentioned.”
Gathering his rewards up from the ground where they appeared, he fit the belt around his waist. He noticed immediately that there were no hoops for potions, as the name would suggest. It looked just like a plain leather belt.
“How the hell does this thing work?” Dex asked.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“I’m not sure, honestly. Maybe it came broken.” Princess echoed.
“What kind of thrift shop quest reward shit is this?” He said, picking up one of the potions and miming slotting it into a belt loop that wasn’t there. The potion, in turn, disappeared. “What in the...” Dex puzzled. He reached his now empty hand back towards the belt, and the potion appeared in his grasp. “Well, ain’t that nifty.” He returned the potion, then put the other one in as well.
“It just magically holds them in some sort of void space?” Princess asked.
“Sure, we’ll go with that.” Dex said, turning his attention to the scroll.
He held a blank parchment, staring at it. Princess had said something about him choosing a reward, but he wasn’t quite sure how to. He went with his first guess, focusing his intent on the scroll. It worked, and a popup appeared.
[Choose one of the following rewards]
[Passive Acquisition Scroll: Chitinous Skin]
[Passive Acquisition Scroll: Aura Sense (Tier 1)]
[Skill Acquisition Scroll: Ghost Form]
[Skill Acquisition Scroll: Blink Step]
“Wow, these sound awesome. And it’s letting me choose two!” Dex looked at Princess, who gave off a very excited vibe.
“Two!?” she squeaked. “You seriously must have something that is increasing your quest rewards. What are your choices?”
Dex read out the choices and, before she could tell him to, checked to see if he could get a better description of what each reward was. He wasn’t sure how to for a moment, but after focusing on the reward and intending for a description, he figured he was finally getting the hang of how this whole system worked.
[Chitinous Skin: Your skin hardens and becomes harder to penetrate. The downside is you look like a gross bug]
Immediately passing on that one, Dex moved on to the next.
[Aura Sense (Tier 1): You faintly feel weak auras around you, like a tickle in the back of your mind]
That sounded more interesting. Having a “third eye” that could watch his back sounded invaluable. Dex checked Ghost Form next.
[Ghost Form: You become incorporeal, appearing as a faint blue spirit. This allows you to walk through walls, but is very draining on one’s energy]
While that sounded cool, Dex had no clue how much energy he had, and if it was better used elsewhere. He chalked this one up as a “maybe.” On to the last one.
[Blink Step: You quickly step a short distance. The distance you can step is increased by an average of your Agility and Resonance stats]
Again, that sounded cool. Having a quick teleport could probably save his life in many situations. It sure would have helped against the cragtooth, that much he knew for sure.
Dex relayed the descriptions to Princess and the two discussed options for a moment. Ultimately, they agreed that Aura Sense was probably the right choice. Princess could smell and hear better than he could, which helped a bit. However, Tiff has been around for an entire life-or-death fight and neither had a single clue he was there. They were only lucky he wasn’t out to kill them.
Selecting his option, Dex saw the scroll fill with text. It wasn’t English, that was for sure. It appeared to be some runic or ancient mumbojumbo. He focused on the scroll, and within seconds it fizzled into nothing. A popup confirmed his new skill.
[The following Passive has been acquired]
[Passive: Aura Sense (Tier 1): You faintly feel weak auras around you, like a tickle in the back of your mind]
“Perfect,” he said.
“Well, do you feel anything?” Princess asked, climbing back into the front of his poncho.
“Nope, which is probably a good thing. Now, let’s see if we can’t find this Fort.” Dex replied, and began jogging into the woods.
Not even one-hundred paces through the woods, Dex and Princess heard a loud bell in the distance. Dex got flashbacks to his hometown and the church bells that would sound every hour. One ring per hour. Now, he heard six bells. Of course, he had no clue if that had the same meaning hew as used to back in his world, but it meant one thing for sure; civilization. It rang enough times for him to pinpoint where it was coming from, and he adjusted his direction accordingly.
“Maybe that’s the Fort?” Princess echoed.
Dex echoed back to save his breath. “I’m hoping so. Maybe they will have a room we can rent.”
“With what money?” Princess asked.
“You’re resourceful. Go sneak some out of someone’s pocket or something,” Replied Dex.
“That’s stealing, and stealing it wrong, Dexter.” Princess echoed sarcastically, before squeaking in laughter.
“If this world has taught me anything in the last day and a half, it’s that you and I need to worry about just that; You and I.” Dex echoed.
“Well, Tiff helped us and didn’t try to kill us,” Princess protested.
“Yeah, and then immediately fucked off to let us fend for ourselves again. And we’re lucky he even showed up in the first place.” Dex pointed out.
“That’s a fair point.” Princess finished. The pair continued on in silence.
The journey to the Fort took longer than they expected, roughly around an hour. Both would have guessed they were much closer, considering how loud the bells were. As they finally broke through the tree line, they saw a building that wasn’t set to ruin. It was the grandest thing Dex had ever seen. His eyes widened at the sight, but nowhere near wide enough to see the width of the walls in front of him. Walls of pristine white and gray stone, nearly a hundred feet tall, stretched to either side of him so far that he couldn’t even see the end of it. To their left, a ways down the wall, was a large metal door. In front stood half a dozen guards holding various weapons. The guards didn’t move as they approached, not even shifting their eyes to look at them. Except one, who set down her weapon, grabbing a brown leather book from a nearby table. She opened the book and held a pen to the page.
“Name, rank, and house, please.” The woman said, clearly expecting them to know what the fuck she meant by “rank and house”.
“Uhhh. Ummm,” was all Dex could muster.
The woman slammed the book closed, clearly annoyed. “I don’t believe I’ve asked you to drool like an idiot. Provide your information, or should I ask your vermin to do it for you?”
“This one’s a short fuse.” Princess echoed.
Ignoring Princess for now, Dex spoke to the woman. “I’m uh, new here?” He said with an absolute lack of confidence.
The woman stared at him for what felt like eons. She squinted, furrowing her brow and wrenching her nose into a witch-like wrinkle. Looking him up and down for a moment, she finally spoke again, her face turning sour. “A Transient, perhaps?”
Sweat poured from Dex’s forehead. He could have drank a glass of his nervousness. Swallowing a large lump in his throat, Dex mumbled, “Yes ma’am.”
Clapping her hands, the woman changed her tone once again. “Wonderful!” She said, smiling for the first time. “Arbiter Hamil, open the gate, please.” She motioned to one of the guards behind her. Turning her attention back to Dex, she continued. “I will personally escort you through Fort Moortin and give you a formal introduction. It’s been quite some time since a Transient has actually made it to our doorstep.”
She dropped the book back where it was and gestured for them to follow. The guard she spoke to, Arbiter Hamil, stepped towards the door and stood in front of it. He held his arm up towards the handle, which sat halfway up the ten story door. His arm stretched like rubber, moving gracefully all the way to the handle. Pulling at it like a normal door, he opened the gate.