Chapter 162: The First Move

The team headed from the Dahl estate to the Adventure Society. Nara had thought only dragons topped horses as a majestic ride, but riding into town on a massive wolf of flame and shadow like the antithetical incarnation of Fenrir claimed first place in Nara’s internal charts. Or it would’ve, if Thanatos could keep his tongue from lolling out at the vaguest sniffle of street food.

Lawrence had no business at the Adventure Society; he headed off independently to check in at the local Temple of Knowledge. He hadn’t earned one of Kallid’s ice-crystal plaques. When the team was ready to dive into the mausoleum’s depths, he’d join them for research. Like Aliayah, the prospect of hands-on research with old magical ruins was the most delightful part of adventuring. Back in Sanshi, he had passed the Adventure Society exam, and received a badge marking him as a utility adventurer. He had no interest in full adventurer status, which may require him to fight during monster waves if required of him. All adventurers of every type helped, he’d just be assigned to a logistics, communication, or transportation position.

The Adventure Society’s layout followed a general layout, but Kallid had its own flair. The bottom floor was expanded, a large tavern-like drinking area with a bar and tables was filled with busy adventurers, day drinking despite the morning hours. A quick cleansing ability would sober them up anyway. Armor had more fur, treated leather, and heavy cloths. Scouts often wore white and grey instead of dark colors, although the approaching spring warmth meant browns, greens, and blacks were back in fashion for the scout community…although, the color of armor didn’t matter much when you had the ability to blend into your surroundings anyway.

“So you’re the rumored team!” A leonid adventurer trotted up to the team who was taking in their surroundings at the entrance of the society. He held out his hand for a handshake. “I’m Roscoe. Roscoe Norum.”

“Sen Arlang,” Sen said. He shook Roscoe’s hand, the sort of confident and hearty clasp you’d expect of brother-in-arms.

Roscoe was a sociable fellow, chipper and enthusiastic. Evidently, his tactic of approaching the new team in town was well known, and other adventurers in the semi-tavern hall jeered and whistled.

“Yer here for the mausoleum, right? All you new teams are here for the mausoleum. I know I can’t be wrong.”

“That’s right. What business do you have with us?”

“Oh business indeed I do have. If you’re new, it means you need a mausoleum guide. I’m here to recommend myself. Solid 4 years in the industry, no dead adventurers under my caring, curated hand,” Roscoe said, performing a dramatic hand flourish and a bow. “Find a growth item or your money back.”

“Really, our money back?”

“No…It’s just a saying,” Roscoe quickly denied, shaking his hand rapidly to dispel the errant words from the air, as if Sen could pluck them from the sky as evidence of his claims later.

Sen evaluated Roscoe. His instinct told him Roscoe was a good person, but he couldn’t intuit whether he was a competent mausoleum guide. But something caught Sen’s attention—from the corner of his eye, someone stiffened at attention, briefly anxious, as if something had gone wrong. Nara’s brief flickering glance confirmed that she’d caught the same slip, not even needing words to communicate.

“Alright,” Sen said, making an on-the-spot decision. “We can discuss terms.”

“Really? You’re one decisive out-of-towner. I like that. Bold, strong, confident. I think we’ll jive.”

Nara quickly appointed some bodies of Sage to gather as much information as she could before the negotiations began. Eufemia was already working on it, disappearing into the tavern as a leonid in a smooth transition in a quick-swap costume change behind a pillar no one else had noticed. Encio joined Sen in the negotiation. Sen could handle it, but negotiations were Encio’s skill set.

John leaned over, suddenly left out to dry together with Nara.

“…What just happened?” he asked unnecessarily quietly over party chat, as if speaking at a normal tone would break whatever spontaneous focus the team had found themselves adopting.

“We went guide shopping and inadvisably bought the first one we saw.”

“But why?”

“Not sure yet. Do you see that celestine over there? With the pale blond hair and eyes?”

“Yeah. Pretty bloke. All of them are.”

“He didn’t like that Roscoe invited us. Well not that concrete, but something’s off. Do you remember what Egil said about mausoleum guides?”

“He said a lot. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“He said one thing that Sen and Encio both find extremely important—We need to find one we can trust.”

John gestured in a ‘I’ll need more than that’ sort of way.

“Okay, um, if hypothetically, there are three guides that approach us with propositions, which guide is the least suspicious and the one we’re most likely to take on—the 1st guide, the 2nd guide, or the 3rd and last guide?”

“The 2nd or 3rd guide,” John said. “The first could be a scammer, trying to score a high-pay contract with the new and ignorant group in town.”

“Exactly. Conversely, if someone is trying to become our guide with bad intentions, the 1st guide is the worst position to take. They’d have a higher chance of success as the 2nd or 3rd guide.”

“If that’s the case, blondie over there shouldn’t have been worried about Roscoe, yet he set your and Sen’s spide-y senses a tingling.”

“What if they know guide 1 isn’t a scammer, but is the real deal?”

“Ahhhh, that ruins the jig. If guide 1 offers a slightly higher-than-average but not unreasonable price, especially if our own investigations reveal he has a good reputation, we’re likely to accept.”

“Exactly. If it had been a scammer as guide 1, then blondie over there wouldn’t have reacted.”

“Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?” John asked, “I’m all for caution, but why would someone try to cheat their way into the position of our guide? We’re just another adventurer group aiming for their promised prize—Roscoe said so himself.”

“I can think of one reason for now,” Nara said, mulling over what she’s already learned about Kallid. “They could be working with tomb raiders to steal our tokens. Having a guide who is working with them makes it easy to split us up and trap us. They could wait for half of the team to be inside of a challenge room, then kill the other half waiting outside. We might be overreacting,” Nara admitted, “but it doesn’t hurt to be careful, and if Roscoe is the real deal, it works out for us. More importantly—”

“—We need to keep an eye out on blondie,” John concluded. “If he disappears, that’s even more suspicious.”

“Yeah, that’d be the most suspicious move. It means he knows he’s been made, and he’d rather arouse more suspicion than just avoid us and mark another target.”

“It’d mean we were the target. Specifically, us.”

*****

The price Roscoe charged was higher than average, but not so high he was a suspected fraudster. Sen and Encio negotiated a trial period—as had become the norm for their party—before committing to a long-term contract. They wanted to see his skill in the mausoleum for themselves. Roscoe was perfectly fine with a trial period if his given rate was paid. Roscoe also negotiated for himself a bonus for each party member that claimed an item from the mausoleum—a shiny gold coin per, for a total of 6. That would be enough to buy a house in the countryside of Kallid, if he wanted one, although Nara suspected Roscoe probably already owned a house. Most bronze rankers owned one in at least their hometown. Aliyah had already bought a very small compound for her family in Sanshi, on top of the city apartment they commuted to work from. Sen and Encio didn’t need a house. John and Eufemia hadn’t committed to a city (John probably never would), and Nara had her portable house-in-a-bottle.

All they needed to tell Roscoe was on which dates they intended to dive into the mausoleum.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Nara kept quiet at the wall of Adventure Society tavern, doing her best wallflower impression, sipping on some common local alcohol paired with drinking snacks. She kept to herself, sensing rather than watching when the blond celestine and his party exited the Adventure Society.

“Sage, can you follow them?”

“I am already at the task, benefactor. Please rest assured.”

With nothing further to do at the Adventure Society as a group, the team disbanded. She spent the daytime with Encio, doing their usual casual touring. Along they way, they purchased meal supplies together with Chrome and Sage. Kallid had a thriving cuisine of smoked, preserved, spiced, and fermented foodstuff, varying from cheeses, meats, and alcohol. The iceburn chili peppers were also a popular spice, which produced an odd sensation Nara could only describe as the food representation of the simultaneous cold-and-warm sensation of Thanatos’s shadow fire fur. Eaten plain, the iceburn chili felt as if it burned the tongue with sharp pricks of cold—it was the uncomfortable sensation of placing super chilled ice on the tongue, a brain freeze for the tastebuds. But chilis weren’t supposed to be eaten plain unless you were recording a video for YouTube or if you were a culinary masochist, so it was used normally like any other pepper, and added as a garnish or a spice to spreads, sauces, breads, cheeses, and soups.

In the evening, Nara sought out the musical tavern scene of Kallid. There was no way that a semi-medieval cold town of the North didn’t have a bustling scene of ballads and buskers, playing for coin to drunkards that cheered and hollered.

Her wishes were realized. Nara found herself blending in quite well among the local bard-folk. Lutes were a popular travel instrument, not just in Kallid but around the world. Folk songs of local legends—the Einvaldi, ruler of Manistrengja, and his Knights of the Moon. They sang of the tales of individual knights: Osain, the popular heroic knight of lore, who rose from commoner to the Einvaldi’s most trusted confidant. Auidan, the skilled but pitiful unlucky knight that found himself stumbling into battles to he couldn’t quite handle yet nonetheless escaping alive. Alys, the quick and skilled knightess that always, humorously, was in the right place at the right time, or in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was only until they sang of names Nara found familiar that she realized they weren’t entirely myths. Jago Dahl, The Winter Fiend, who had slain a gold rank ice elemental decades ago during a monster wave. Amara Edea of Selvacora, when she was a silver ranker had foiled the plans of the god of Destruction, saving the jungles of Selvacora from annihilation that would have turned the region into an unending sea of fire. Even Ranshi Haihu’s name appeared—a reluctant researcher turned adventurer (who had desperately wanted to be a backliner, but his ability set was mixed range), who defended the people of a town with just his tentacle-orb familiar, and his small swarm of floating eyes from a swarm of vampiric-converted monsters.

They were colorful tales, sang with vigor and animation. It didn’t take much embellishment to have the drinkers chattering with excitement or flipping the bard a coin—magic battles against the forces of evil was already an action blockbuster by description. It wasn’t all of the bards and storytellers, but Nara sensed something familiar within them—the touch of a god. They were priests, she realized. Priests who sang of heroes.

Ever since the gods had touched her soul, she was more sensitive to the touch of gods in others. She wasn’t a priest—their connection was deeper. Both Redell and Lawrence could talk directly with their god, these bards were the same. But for which god did their priests sing of heroes?

Her question was answered the moment she thought of it, Priests of Hero.

That wasn’t all priests of Hero did; they also aspired to become heroes themselves. They were often powerful adventurers who willingly thrust themselves where trouble roiled beneath calm waves, to be the pivot upon which defeat swung to victory. Hero was the god that knew of those untold sacrifices, from world-renown heroes that play their part in a massive plan, or those small braveries that save just a few people.

She found a cozy inn and tavern, The Songbird’s Rest, where amateur musicians frequented. It was a sort of karaoke tavern, where the tavern provided some cheap instruments to play a song on for the crowd. A cheap voice amplifying artifact—a clunky wand than the cheaper badges adventurers used—rested on a shelf with the other musical implements. Customers took turns; the performances varied from competent and pleasing songs to drunken blearing from a pair of goobers.

Nara worked up the nerve to play a single song on her Path Seeker Lute—it wasn’t a local song, instead, one of Sanshi’s. She hadn’t been here long enough to learn Kallid’s classic folk songs, so she offered them something exotic. She was adept enough at aura control with her lute so that she wouldn’t send the crowd into a music-induced hypnosis. Once she finished one song, then another after some encouragement, she sat back down to pass the buck onto the next group, a trio of three older ladies singing a humorous love song, gently nudging and laughing at each other on the barely raised stage.

“From one musician to another, a drink. On me.”

A man sat to her left—a dark blue haired celestine, glinting like sapphires illuminated by moonlight. He had stubble, a rarity for celestines, and was likely of either mixed leonid or human heritage.

“Efa, do you still have some of that warm fjord-apple cider? One glass for the talented lady.”

“Talent? I don’t have talent.”

She didn’t have talent, not for music. On Erras and on Earth, she just practiced until she was competent. She had the advantage of a priceless instrument, but her hands were the hands of the masses—as average as can be. Time would shape hard work into something resembling talent to the external viewer, but she would never be the adolescent Chinese kid that plays Tchaikovsky at Carnegie Hall. That was talent (and hard work). This was hobby.

Efa, the tavern proprietress, an older leonid lady as thick and homely as porridge, slid her a mug of warmed cider.

“Your cider dear. I did enjoy your performance, talent or talentless. Whatever you insist. Where was the song from?”

“A little something from Sanshi.”

“Sanshi? Where is that?”

Normal people weren’t exactly well-versed in geography. There were maps in libraries, adventure societies, telecom societies, map shops and book shops, but you couldn’t just pull up the world map on your phone. You had to go and buy one, and most people didn’t have a reason to keep one around, aside from a local map for local trading, or for a splurge of vacation planning. The societies usually had one on hand, but Efa the Tavern Proprietress probably had not looked closely.

“Do you know where the Shian Union is?”

“Oh, you should’ve led with that. I know where that is,” she said with a dismissing gesture. “This may be far out, but I know a little bit of geography. Even if I haven’t taken a step out of Kallid in my life. Never will, but this city is just the right size for me.” She patted her paunch and grinned.

She hummed along to the music as she bustled about; it was a sound that pleasantly combined the rumble of a purr with the musicality of a normal hum. It was a soothing sound that possessed the rumored healing effects of felines, that conjured images of cackling winter fireplaces and the smell of baking pumpkin pie, even at a distance.

“I’m Rhys,” the man introduced, regaining her attention. “Singer of epic tales, fellow of the seven-pair lute.”

“Nara, wanderer of the cosmos.”

“Haha! Under whose authority dubs thee thusly?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think I’m more than qualified. Traveler approved,” she said, completely shameless. Rhys, fellow of the seven-pair lute, would never know how true it was.

“Are you now? Why, aren’t you curious.”

They faced away from the bar, towards the buzzed performer that walked offstage, still in the early stages of drunken revelry.

“Is every day like this here? Song to sooth the mind and wine to wet the throat?”

“We’re a pleasant people,” Rhys said, who had clearly intuited she was a foreigner. “This far out, it’s all we have to offer. Speaking of, your lute raised my curiosity. Could I take a look?”

“You aren’t going to try to run off with it? No offense. I may not win the musical competition, but I’ve won the value competition.”

Rhys grinned, “You can hold my partner as hostage. He won’t be offended, unless, your hands will be offended by holding something of such lesser make?”

“I won’t. Your lute is invaluable to you as it is to me,” she said. Rhy’s wasn’t anything cheap either. It was of moderate quality and make. Perfectly professional and suitable for a normal musician.

She passed her lute to Rhys to hold. He was in for a surprise.

He held the Path Seeker Lute with expert yet casual poise, but his fingers were tender against the stunning masterpiece. Strings of threaded moonlight, wood lacquered of deep moonlight blue, with stars trapped within as if crafted from midnight sky itself. Rhys would’ve have been tempted to steal the beauty; except he knew he’d die trying. This wasn’t the sort of instrument any common folk owned. He’d just be tempted, a mere intrusive thought, nothing further. How he would’ve loved to call such a beauty his! His old partner, seven-pair, however, was perfect for his mundanity.

His fingers lightly touched against the strings—it almost felt forbidden, like touching the surface of a lake of holy water, fearing he’d disturb the sanctity of the grounds. He wrestled the courage to pluck a single string, delicately, like lifting a butterfly from a petal, but nothing sounded.

She laughed.

“I’m afraid it only plays for me. Magic and all that.”

“Cruel magic indeed, to deny a bard his music,” he said, disappointedly handing it back. It was like holding a master-crafted Lirasan without the chance to play a single song. A wistful sigh, and a regret he’d remember.

“What’s her name?”

“Path Seeker.”

They swapped back lutes. Nara was relieved to feel the weight of her lute back in her hands, as was Rhys. She knew her lute was particularly hard to damage—on par with Nirvana, but cringed every time she bumped her baby against anything. It was an ingrained reaction she couldn’t shake from her high school musician years, where they all bemoaned and cringed even as they dinged their mediocre instruments—their precious treasures, regardless of monetary value. A few hundred dollars had seemed so much to her, then.

Rhys thought the mood was nice between them. Silly, unromantic music pervaded the tavern, mixed with the intoxicating scent of food and alcohol. Her hand was on her thigh, and he brough his hand close to touch hers.

His hand didn’t even make it there when he felt an invisible sensation, like a powerful hand grasped around his throat. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make the threat clear.

Sweat rolled down his temple. No one else seemed to notice the sensation of being pressed beneath a lion’s claws. All it would take was a flex, and he was dead.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said lightly. Her eyes were locked on his with a cold, clinical gaze. The warmness of spring had faded, reversing the seasons to a bitter chill of winter.

“I-I just wanted to h-hold your hand,” he stammered out a response, his tongue suddenly feeling bloated, too unwieldy to create words. “I’m sorry. I got caught up…I’m a little drunk,” he admitted.

He wasn’t now. That invisible pressure like a hammer moments away from cracking his skull sobered him up quickly.

She looked at him and sighed; something flashed across her face, regret or guilt, but Rhys couldn’t tell. The pressure relaxed, and Rhys felt like he could breathe again.

“I’m not interested,” she said flatly.

She got up, dumped a handful of coins on the counter, and left the tavern.

Rhys shakily turned around, facing Efa.

“Shit,” he said blankly, burying his face in his shaky hands as he felt the rabbit’s pace beating of his heart gradually slow.

“You really messed that up dear,” Efa said, eyebrow raised admonishingly, still bustling behind the bar and into the connected kitchen. She tutted. “You should’ve known better.”

Gods, he should have known better. No normal person could afford a lute like that, and everyone knew when it came to essence users—

“Always let the other party make the first move,” Rhys said to himself, with an admonishing curse tucked under his tongue.