Metropolis - Goldilocks: Capsule Bay 57 - Unit 4

Tuesday, May 12th, 2089 | 8:24am

Even after Frank, Foot, Aya and Henry made it back to the surface, Aya’s health was still being plagued by the gash Endoin had inflicted on her. Although her health had recovered to the point where she was recovering points faster than she was losing them, the pain was still excruciating. The gash was the worst wound she’d received in Era, by far. She’d hated the way convicts had to feel pain in Era, but now she abhorred it.

At one point she must have made a face of some sort when she moved, once more tearing up her back, because Foot looked at her, frowned and asked, “What’s wrong with you? You got a tummy-ache?”

“No, it’s just—”

Her words were cut short when Frank stuck a potion in front of her face in, what she was coming to learn as, his usual taciturn way.

“Drink it,” the muscular man said, “it’ll help.”

Aya nodded and took the flask. At any other moment, she might have turned it down. She didn’t know the two of them very well and she didn’t want to be indebted to them, but right then and there, she just wanted the pain to go away.

“Thank you,” Aya said, really meaning it, before she took a sip. She was unused to philanthropic kindness, the two of them really had no other reason to be helping her out.

“Ohhhhhh,” Foot said, finally catching on. “You got hurt from that boobs lady.”

“Yeah,” Aya said, trying to contain her laughter. “I did.”

“Okay, well, we’re gonna go kill some bad guys now!” He announced out of the blue. “You’re too weak, but if you train everyday maybe you can come with us someday…” Foot said in a lecturing tone.

“I will…” Aya said.

He nodded happily, bent down to ruffle Henry’s feathers again and said, “I’ll see you later, buddy!”

The bird crooned like some well-mannered pet. Unfortunately, his new behavior didn’t extend to her; if anything, the bird had been even more petulant since their reunion.

“Bye, Aya!” Foot said. “Call me when you want to play!”

“I will.”

Frank nodded to Aya, she nodded back.

They took a couple steps away and Aya watched their retreating backs until the kid turned back, waved, and shouted, “See you, Aya!”

“See you, Kid!” she replied in the same way, feeling a tad foolish.

Foot was ten yards away.

She watched them for a couple minutes until her health completely healed up. Frank must have given her some potent stuff because she’d barely used a quarter of it and she was back to normal. Not having the pain weighing down on her was a huge relief and she made her way back to Old Ma'am Lulo.

Aya didn’t even bother checking the forums. If she left now, she’d be cutting it close time-wise for her meeting with Donovan, but mainly, she just didn’t want to deal with the backlash she would have received from her breach of agreement. Instead, she picked up an axe and got back to working on her stats and reputation.

The level increase gave a huge boost to her stat gain. Most of them were going into strength and aim. It was perfect because they were stats that were usually quite hard to train. The only downside was how boring, tiring and blister-producing the work was.

Time went by slowly, but not as slowly as her reputation rose. When she finally managed to neutralize her reputation with Durrenheim, she had exactly twenty-four minutes to get to town before Donovan, being Donovan, logged in.

Aya hurried to town, making it back in record time. Panting, she settled out of her jog and into a fast walk as she approached the city gates. She was ‘lucky’ the same guards from the day before were at their posts; she would get to smile smugly at them while she walked by with her neutral rating.

She puffed her chest out, straightened her spine, lengthened her step and just generally tried to look as commanding and pompous as she could. It wasn’t very easy with her height being as small as it was and Henry being as Henry as he was.

“Halt!” both guards shouted in unison, laying their spears down in front of her, once more preventing her entrance into Durrenheim.

“OH, come on!” Aya shouted.

“Traitors are not allowed in,” the guard on the right said. “Leave now, or suffer the consequences.”

“What do I have to do to—” Aya’s words were cut short when her eyes landed on a trio she knew all too well.

Without another word, she took off, following the city walls as she tried to keep her head low. Darting her eyes back just long enough to get a few peeks, Aya made sure that they hadn’t spotted her. The first time had been coincidence, but running into Serving Time players for the second time couldn’t be.

Wishing she had a hood, Aya directed her attention at Henry and started one of her usual nonsensical conversations. It was better to appear slightly crazy than outright guilty, not that her height would make it easy for her to disguise as anything other than herself.

It took four minutes for her to bend the corner and have her suspicions confirmed. The two usual posted guards were flanked by two clearly-marked convict players. Not wanting to call attention to herself by doing a complete one-eighty, Aya went down on her knee and rummaged in her pack.

Buying herself time, she took out her notebook and started sketching, pretending to be analyzing a dried out husk of a plant that was near her feet. Henry scratched at it with his feet, totally ruining the effect she was trying to achieve, but luckily, no one saw.

Before Aya could think of a plan, three other players jogged up through the gates. One of them approached the first two, while the other two looked around, obviously searching for something. Fearing she knew what, Aya straightened her back and tried to look as big, relaxed, innocent and inconspicuous as possible while pretending to draw a stalk of dried-out grass.

As the seconds ticked by and she saw the first two convicts shake their head before resuming their search, she knew her time was running out. The only reason for the guild to have increased their numbers just then meant that she’d been spotted and given away by someone. And the only reason for them to have any numbers at all was that the person in charge of undermining their entire weapons business had also just killed off an entire party of theirs.

Henry squawked helpfully, she sighed, and the situation wasn’t resolved. Aya got up and put her notebook away, using as unobtrusive movements as she could. She wanted to avoid attention for as long as she could. Having no way of knowing their levels, Aya couldn’t rely on Stealth to get by. If any of them looked directly at her, they’d spot her, so she’d have to take the indirect route.

Grabbing Henry by the neck, she stuffed him into one of her rucksacks and gagged him before he could make any noise. She could have taken the slower and nicer approach but it didn’t have a definitive success rate. Securing her things, she looked around one last time to make sure no one was paying her any attention in that exact moment and activated her Stealth mode.

It wasn’t a second too soon: a moment later, Furia and her duo showed up around the bend of the city walls. Aya took a strangled breath, but none of them were looking directly at her. Taking the chance before it slipped away, she moved quickly towards the wall. With the newcomers to the scene, she couldn’t use all the haste she wanted in the fear that the dust would give her away.

With twenty seconds left on the skill, Aya reached the town walls and stuck her fingers into the highest crevice she could reach. The last time she’d climbed any sort of wall had been during her sophomore year in high school. The memory was seven years old, but it came back vividly and she climbed the ten-foot wall faster than she’d ever climbed anything before.

Unfortunately, she’d never been very fast; she reached the top with two seconds to spare. Not having time to plan a better descent, Aya took a straight dive and tried to remember all her physical education classes that told her to bend her knees. She toppled to the ground ungracefully, landing awkwardly on her butt, all thoughts of bent knees forgotten.

It hurt her spine as well, but luckily, she’d been able to absorb some of the impact with her legs. The injuries that hurt were her hands. She hadn’t realized until then just how much she’d punished them in her climb. The skin was torn on almost every finger, her nails were broken on both middle and index fingers and she had cuts and scrapes on all her fingertips.

She considered letting the injuries heal on their own. Going by previous experience, it would probably take two hours for her to stop receiving small health deductions, but more like three for it to stop stinging. Henry started jumping around in the sack and in the process of letting him out, Aya came across the healing potion.

Choosing to see it as a sign to take the wussy way out, she did just that and got ready to move again. She was a little less worried about being attacked by Serving Time within Durrenheim. Inside the city walls, she was at least protected from being killed by them, as player killing was systematically impossible. Then again, there were ways around it, like forcing her out of town first.

With her slightly recovered Durrenheim reputation, Aya had been quite positive that she would have been allowed inside the gates. She wanted to attribute her failure to the guards’ personal hatred of her, but she decided to be vigilant of guards from then on anyway.

Aya brushed dust off of her tunic - a motion that was becoming too habitual - as she made her way toward the center of town. Having her location exposed wasn’t a very smart idea, but getting caught alone in an alley was even worse. When Aya reached the market, she approached the first merchant she laid eyes upon without a customer in line and exchanged three Contracts for a musty cloak.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

By the unfairness of the deal and the shoddy quality of the cloak, it was quite obvious why the balding, skinny merchant with bad breath was so devoid of customers. She knew she’d come to regret the purchase of the item eventually. It was hot, scratchy and smelly, and she’d practically chosen a desert to start out in. Right then and there, she put it on and was grateful for the camouflage it provided.

She blended right in with the crowd, and not a second too soon. Amongst the other people milling in the town center, there were quite a few Serving Time members, but luckily, there were also many players, merchants and travelers also dressed in cloaks. The garments were stuffy but at least they provided protection from the sun. Aya noticed how the elves particularly seemed to all wear cloaks.

Donovan: Where are you?

Aya didn’t even bother checking the time.

Aya: Durrenheim Square

Donovan: Meet me at Black Ivan’s Tavern. Five minutes.

Aya asked a random female merchant who looked friendly towards kids how to get to Black Ivan’s Tavern. If the woman thought the request was weird coming from a kid, she didn’t show it. Instead, she even offered to draw out a map on one of Aya’s scraps of paper. Nodding her appreciation and thanks, she did a shallow curtsy and made her way to the tavern.

She got there ten seconds before the arranged time; she knew because she’d set up a big timer with a countdown. It was a bit sad how she followed a thirteen year old’s instructions to a tee, but she’d worry about her pride later. Right then and there, with a guild of criminals on her tail and no real friends to turn to, she needed him.

“You are late,” Donovan said as she took a seat down next to him.

“I’m…” Aya said, then bit her tongue. “… Sorry.”

Donovan nodded curtly and said, “What did you do?”

“What did I—”

“I logged in seven minutes ago and am not completely up to speed,” he said in his usual factual voice. “But you did something. They want you dead.”

“Oh…” Aya said lamely. “That.”

“What else?” Donovan said just as lamely.

A stretch of silence passed. Donovan ordered some tea, which made the barmaid give him a weird look, but she brought it anyway, along with Aya’s cup of water. The cloak was making her sweat like a pig and there he was, drinking a steaming-hot cup of tea. She shuddered, took a sip of cold water and didn’t comment. The kid was just strange, but who was she to say anything? She needed to start finding herself some grown-up friends.

“Your actions have put me in a difficult situation,” Donovan said.

Aya wanted to ask how his situation could possibly be worse than hers, but she kept quiet.

“Now I have no choice but to stay in Serving Time until this mess boils over.”

“Why…” Aya began, but Donovan looked at her like she was the most dimwitted thing he’d ever come across so instead, she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I need to stay under the radar,” he said, as if talking to a child. “ST is a huge guild and they have a lot of high-level players.”

“But they can’t link you to me, can they?”

“Not yet,” he said, sipping his tea. “But if I quit now while all of this is going on, they will look into me and it will not be hard for them to link us both. If not through our copious time together, then through Xavier or someone else.”

Aya nodded, and sipped her water, not sure what to say to him.

“Luckily, this situation will be over before too long.”

“What do you mean by that?” Aya asked.

“I mean the situation will be over in a couple of days,” Donovan replied, matter-of-factly.

“… Why?” Aya said, controlling the urge to roll her eyes.

“Because ST’s Durrenheim branch will go bankrupt.”

Mid-sip, Aya choked on the water as she tried to swallow it all at once.

“Wait,” she said, coughing. “What do you… How!? We’ve barely been at this for one day… I mean, I’d hoped, but I hadn’t expected it to go this well, or this fast…”

“This is not attributable to you,” he said stealing her thunder in one fell swoop. “This branch has already been on the path to demise for a long time.”

“But what about the—”

“The players they are bringing in from different regions?” he asked.

Aya nodded.

“It was a last-ditch effort,” he said. “It would have worked if you had not decided to take over the weapons market.”

“Why is that?”

“They have a debt they are paying off at the bank—”

“Durrenheim City Bank?” Aya asked excitedly.

“Is there another?” Donovan asked flatly.

“…Sorry.”

He nodded, took another sip of tea and said, “As it stands now, they are going to default on too many payments to stay afloat until the new players arrive.”

“How were new players going to bail them out?” Aya asked, genuinely curious as to how Yaz would be used by the guild.

“Different guilds have different rules,” Donovan said simply. “Some have high buy-ins and fealty percentages.”

“Fealty… Like, a cut from what you make?”

Donovan sighed and shook his head, “Do not ask questions you know the answer to. It is quite annoying.”

Aya wanted to know what else he thought was annoying, but contained herself.

“I will be going now,” Donovan said, putting a couple coppers on the table as he got up from his chair. “Do not contact me unnecessarily.”

Aya didn’t even bother coming up with a farewell as she knew the boy wouldn’t care one way or another. Instead, she took out her notebook and wrote all the information down. As a visual person, she’d always thought better with the facts laid out in front of her.

Yaz had said it would still take some time for the new guild members to arrive. It all made sense, now that she thought about it. Teleportation portals did exist, but they were expensive and not really easily affordable until you reached at least level fifty. For a guild that was on its last legs financially, it didn’t make any sense to blow all the money on travel when they could move them all together.

The fact that caught most of her attention though, was the guild’s loan defaults. Aya had loans herself, and she’d basically put herself up as collateral. A collateral she wouldn’t be able to afford if her Era time was limited, but focusing on that wasn’t helping her cause. No, what she really needed to do was pay Qanelin a visit.

The day’s heat hit her like a brick wall in its subtlety. She was pouring sweat two steps out the door, already regretting the gold she’d have to spend on replenishing fluids. Buying water in the main square was no longer an option; her reputation in Durrenheim was so bad that the prices would be at an extortionist level and the location was too visible to Serving Time.

Aya kept to the side of the market, close to the buildings, partially motivated by the cover it gave her, but even more motivated by the shade it provided. The cloak was chafing at her and she was already sorely regretting her purchase when she made it to the bank.

“Welcome back…. Miss Aya,” Qanelin greeted her, still unsure of how exactly to address her.

“Hi…” she said as he showed her inside.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Business as usual,” she replied. “I was actually thinking of looking into some new investments, since my current ones have started making me some nice returns…”

Qanelin lifted an eyebrow and looked simultaneously curious and distressed.

“Well… Miss, I am very glad things are working out for you…” he said. “In fact, I would be quite happy to go over your books with you.”

He made his way to the little stand by the side of the study, where he poured them each a glass of water. Aya noticed deep sweat stains on the man’s clothing, and filed the information away. Qanelin was uncomfortable about something and she wondered whether she could use it to her advantage or if it would work against her. It remained to be seen.

“No, that is alright,” Aya said. “I actually just want to talk to you about a new venture I have become aware of.”

Qanelin gave her a glass and sat down behind his desk before he spoke.

“And what venture would that be?”

“Have you heard of…” Aya began, but then stopped herself. “Is this conversation confidential?”

“W-Why, yes!” the man spluttered.

“Then you won’t mind if I add it to our Contract?” Aya asked in what she hoped came across as a deferential tone.

Qanelin didn’t look too pleased, which probably wasn’t a good beginning to negotiations, but she couldn’t have anyone, especially Serving Time, finding out about what she was planning before it was done. It took him a minute to locate the Contract and another for her to make the small addition.

“Alright,” said Qanelin with a slight scowl as sweat dripped down his face. “Are you ready to tell me about this secretive venture of yours?”

“Actually, I was hoping you could…” Aya said, uncertain about how to phrase her next words. “I heard that Serving Time has an account with you.”

“Perhaps…” Qanelin said noncommittally, but the way he intoned the words almost like a question gave away his interest.

She waited a second, crossing her legs to fill the silence, in case he decided to give away any information. Doris had taught her that much, but when he didn’t say anything for nearly a minute, she realized the bait wasn’t quite right yet.

“I heard, from a trusted source,” Aya said slowly. “That they are about to default on their loan with you…”

Qanelin’s eyebrows shot up.

“Who told you that?”

“Oh,” Aya said off-handedly. “A little bird told me.”

The banker frowned, but she saw his eyes seriously consider her words for the first time.

“And this interests you…” he asked. “Why?”

“I was hoping to take on the loa—”

“Impossible,” he said, cutting her off. “I am sorry, but you are already overdrawn as it is. In fact, I don’t know how I ever let you convince me to sign off on the deal that we made.”

“But our deal has been going quite well, don’t you think?”

“It hasn’t even been three days.”

“I’ve never missed a payment though,” she argued. “You can’t say the same for them.”

“Again, three days,” he said. “Three days won’t give you a good credit rating. Months of regular payments will.”

Aya looked in his eyes and realized that she wasn’t going to get him to budge. The more she pushed him in the state that he was in, the more he would resist her.

“Ok then,” Aya said. “What do I have to do to get my credit rating up so you can trust me?”

“Make regular payments,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I need something faster,” she said. “something that will change my rating now.”

Qanelin outright laughed at her proposal.

“Unless you get someone to co-sign your loan with you,” he said, “we won’t be able to get you anything. Now, if you’ll—”

“Is there any other way?” Aya asked. “Any other way at all?”

“No,” Qanelin said. “Unless you’re able to pay off all your debts today, I won’t be able to help you. Perhaps you can join a guild that will help you.”

Aya perked up at his last words.

“A guild?” she asked, getting to her feet as well.

“Yes,” he said. “Guilds can have funds, in fact they almost always have funds. They need to cover many guild costs. Depending on how big the guild is… some even offer spousal support.”

“But what you’re saying is, my credit rating won’t affect that of the guild?”

“It will,” he said. “But if you have enough people with good ratings to counteract it…”

“So,” Aya said, finally getting the man’s attention. “If I come back later with a guild….”

She could see the objection the banker wanted to make so she added,

“… That can afford it.”

He was appeased.

“Then you’ll consider my offer?”

“If you have a guild, and if it can afford it…” and just like that, the greedy spark was back in the man’s eyes. “I see no reason as to why we should not do business once again.”

Aya grinned, shook the man’s sweaty hand and left the bank. Now all she had to do was find a guild to join.