As it turned out the evening snow was just a sign of what was to come, as the night progressed the storm outside grew to a full-blown blizzard.
The atmosphere inside the hut was solum, to say the least.
Gotan was alternating between shooting glares at Emily and shrinking from her whenever she got up to stretch her legs.
While Kathryn and her daughter remained in the opposite corner of the room.
Emily had posted up beside Alex and using their packs had made a makeshift bed for the guy. Who was not looking good, the fever was progressing and his breathing was shallow. Emily wasn’t sure, but luckily there was no stink of rot coming from his wound… yet.
The biggest downside was that neither Kathryn nor Gotan had one of these supposed life-saving tonics even when Emily had ‘insisted’ they check.
Gotan was supposedly a Merchant so if he’d had one he ‘might’ have been willing to sell it to her but he didn’t have any on hand.
With morning fast approaching Emily wanted to get some shut-eye, but near the early light, Alex began moaning in his sleep.
Pulling herself forward Emily fed him from the waterskin and looked at the blood-soaked material.
Grunting Emily looked through their packs but found nothing she could use as bandages.
Looking up she noticed Kathryn glancing her way.
The woman then got up, careful not to wake the sleeping child next to her, and made her way to Emily while holding a pouch.
“You want to change his bandages?”
Emily simply nodded as the woman took a neat bundle of cloth out of her pouch.
“Use this, but we need to boil some water first.”
Emily looked down at the rough cloth and frowned.
“Why are you doing this?”
The woman paused as though she didn’t expect the question.
“Because you look like you need help… It could not have been easy to get him here, but you clearly care greatly for this young man.”
Emily cocked head.
“Bearly know him.”
This caused Kathryn to pause again, this time in shock.
“Well, there goes my ‘husband’ theory… Look, if you want a reason, take it as an old woman helping where she can. And if you can’t accept that, know that I’m a Tailor, and that cloth is just my scraps, pay me two rounds if you’re feeling guilty.”
Emily didn’t say anything but reached into her cloak and took out the coin purse she’d ‘acquired’ from the illusionist.
Opening it she found several coins in it. The strange thing was they all looked to be made of the same type of blue metal, though with varying hues. None of which looked like the coin she'd seen the illusionist pass over to the leader.
She had several roundish ones, four oval ones with sharp points, two triangle coins, and a single square coin.
Emily noticed Kathryn’s eyes go wide when she saw the purse.
“Be careful putting that wealth on display girl, it doesn’t matter here, but a lot of people would kill for the amount you're holding.”
Emily shrugged.
“Let them try and take what’s mine, I’ll make sure it's the last coin they ever see. But that does raise another question. I’m new to the region, what's the value of these coins.”
Kathryn glanced behind her at Gotan, they had been talking in hushed tones but in a single room without any walls, it was hard to hide things.
Emily glanced over and saw the man staring at them curiously.
“Well he would be better suited to explaining this but I’ll try my best.”
Kathryn moved a small pot and set it on the log stove along with water. Emily cut the bandages as Kathryn went through the coin weights.
It was a simple system ten rounds made a single oval coin, and ten triangles made a Square. Supposedly there was another pentagonal coin above squares, but that was not used very often.
In fact, rounds were mostly used in day-to-day transactions. They were called rounds but none of them were the same shape really, every coin was irregular. Most closely resemble twisted pieces of metal in a roundish shape.
Though their weights were all the same, they were just flattened and sent out.
The ovals were distinct in that they were shaped roughly, every coin after that grew in perfection and line sharpness.
They were just finishing up and Emily was tying the last knot on Alex’s bandage when Gotan spoke up for the first time since last night.
“You must be from a distant place if they use something other than the five-coin system.”
Emily felt no need to answer him but she did have another question.
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“Yes, I see there’s no imprint on the coins how isn’t there rampant counterfeiting?”
Gotan looked frustrated but answered her.
“On a local level, it might happen but, a coin's purity is obvious to any titled Merchant by sight alone. They wouldn’t accept coinage that was below the standard percentage for each coin.”
He looked proud when he said this and Emily’s brows rose, could they tell purity just by looking at the coin?
Titles were starting to look more and more appealing as time went on.
“And I’m assuming it’s not gold mixed in there so what's the coin weighted on?”
Now both Gotan and Kathryn looked confused.
“Why in the world would one use gold, it's almost useless, with exceptions to a few Enchanters that need the stuff. No, coins are valued by the amount of cobalt in them.”
Emily blinked, and looked down at the coin in her palm, handing two rounds over to Kathryn.
“Why cobalt?”
Gotan frowned and crossed his arms.
“Natural demand, of course, its desired by many different titles.”
Shrugging Emily turned back to Alex, he looked more comfortable now but not out of the woods yet.
Emily snickered at the play on words, all she’d done since getting to this world was try to get out of the woods, and now because of this blizzard, she couldn’t even do that. Waiting became all they could do as the storm ate through the morning hours. When the little girl woke up, she was much more chatty than the previous night. She whispered to her mother when she thought Emily was not looking. Emily had learned her name was Shelly yesterday, and although Shelly never worked up the courage to come over, Emily could see that she was a little bundle of curiosity, barely seven years of age.
The winds outside howled against their little structure yet its foundations were firm. The sunlight outside turned the falling snow into a blanket of white. Reducing visibility to almost nothing. The one thing Emily noted when she looked out the window, was that the road somehow remained a beacon in the storm. The flakes of ice seemed incapable of resting on its surface, as if unable to find purchase. It was during this time that Emily spotted something making its way down the road.
It was around noon, and the storm had barely let up but still, the object forged on ahead until it became more clear.
Some kind of wooly ox with bundles tied to its body lumbered towards the hut. A couple of forms clung to its sides gilding it.
Emily let the others know.
Gotan panicked, while Kathryn bit her lip moving towards the staircase. Emily wasn’t going to stop her from opening the door. These people might have a tonic and Alex needed one desperately.
It wasn’t long before a heavy knock came to the door.
Kathryn got to the bottom as Emily stood at the top watching the door. The mechanism released the door and opened out into the storm, a burst of chilly air snaked into the building.
At first, Emily couldn’t make out anything below but then two forms came through the threshold. Two men to be exact. One of them looked to be around 6’5 and packed with muscle while the other was of average height and build.
The moment Emily saw their eyes she knew they were trouble. Both men glanced up at her with a glassy feral intent.
Kathryn said something to them but Emily wasn’t paying attention.
The larger man shut the door behind them and turned the mechanism, barring the door.
Warning bells went off in Emily's head when she heard one of the men responding to Kathryn.
“Wait, how many did you say were here?”
Kathryn hesitated then, seemingly realizing something was not right.
“...Well I- Wait!”
Emily saw the man draw a blade and press it against her throat positioning himself behind her.
Emily stepped backward out of sight just as he glanced up towards them again.
“Whew, it's chilly out there! Now we’re coming up the stairs and don’t even think about closing that hatch. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I will do so.”
Getting some distance Emily heard shuffling below and as they began their ascent.
Stepping around to the back of the opening Emily called Gotan with a hand. She needed the man to stand in the front because all it would take was for one of them to turn their head at the wrong time for them to see her.
Gotan shook his head violently at her call, but Emily leveled a hand toward him. If he wasn’t going to be useful, she didn’t need the coward distracting her.
The man seemed to understand and even though he was shaking violently he took a step towards the front of the opening.
Shelly, took a step towards the entrance and Emily glared at her to back away.
“Mommy?”
Their footsteps continued up and Emily lowered herself to the ground, Gotan had armed himself with the pot they’d used to boil water.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and two heads poked up through the flood. Kathryn was in front of the man holding the knife to her neck.
“Afternoon sir, where’d that pretty girl go? I'm afraid yo-”
The man never finished his sentence as Emily shot a hand out and pressed it up against his left ear. Firing a bolt straight through his skull, the detonation of bone and blood rocked the room and she heard a yell from the man below.
Kathryn’s scream was cut short followed but the sound of gurgling.
The large man came rushing into the room barely shaken by his friend's death. Worryingly he locked eyes with Emily almost immediately and his already large mass bulged. Muscles strained and grew as he hopped onto their level and charged with the speed of a bull.
Seeing this Emily fired a bolt at his skull, however instead of trying to dodge he lifted his arms and took the attack against his crossed forearms.
These bolts had the same vitality packed into them as a fully grown adult, and could easily destroy wood and even stone if Emily was so inclined. Bone should be of no consequence, but when the bolt hit, it tore his flesh but nothing more, only managed to stagger the man. Seeing this, Emily didn’t hold back and fired a second bolt at the man’s pelvis. A concussive sound rang out into the room causing the man to groan and kneel over in pain.
As underhanded as it sounded, Emily was not a stranger to physically enhanced supers.
If he got in close quarters the fight would be at a huge disadvantage, so she aimed at his pelvis again.
This time though he managed to get his arms low, but Emily had been hoping for that and aimed straight for his skull.
The bolt tore through his right eye, shredding the surrounding flesh and organ itself, however, somehow he remained alive.
“Fuck! Just die already!” Emily growled.
The man screamed in response and grabbed the trap door, ripping it off its hinges and lobing it at Emily.
The mass of wood sailed through the air at her but because he was blind in one eye, the throw went wide.
Emily ducked under the corner and fired a third attack, unfortunately, he saw that coming and blocked it in the same fashion as the first.
Cursing, Emily did the one thing she had been avoiding, she ran toward the mountain of a man.
Seeing this, a sickening smile spread across his lips, as her hand dropped out of sight.
When she got in range, she stuck her hand in his face and prepared to fire, only for him to grab her wrist with lightning-fast reflexes.
The sounds of the bones in her wrist cracking could be heard throughout the room. Emily screamed in agony, but using that pain, she twisted her other arm around. An arm that now held her dagger in it, and pulnged it into the damaged eye socket.
The man let go immediately and flailed backward before catching himself.
Emily took a step back and saw he was still standing with a dagger poking out of his brain.
“Holy moly, not gonna lie, that's awesome, fucking disgusting, but awesome.”
The guy ripped the dagger from its home in his skull, discarding it. The clattering of the knife on the wooden floor sounded like a gunshot.
If Emily were fighting a beast it would either have run by now or fallen into an uncontrollable rage. But the man’s remaining eye still held a thread of rationality through all this. Reaching down to his belt the man pulled a vial off it and popped the wax seal with his thumb before swallowing it down.
He was still searching for a way to come out on top, and the longer Emily dragged this out the worse it was going to get.
This guy needed to die, and he needed to die, now.